Passing on the Craft: From The Bahamas to the Cotswolds
At Heritage Lime, we’re passionate about keeping the timeless art of stonemasonry alive – not only through our daily work when restoring and maintaining heritage buildings, but also through opportunities to skill-share and teach.
Thanks to the generous support of The King’s Foundation, we were recently able to welcome a group of students who had travelled all the way from The Bahamas to join us here in our yard at Perrott’s Brook; they were going to spend three weeks with us for some hands-on training experience and to learn about all things lime.
Learning the Essentials
Over the course of their three-week stay, this handful of Bahamian students were able to immerse themselves in learning all about this heritage craft, beginning with an exploration into the lime cycle and how this remarkable, sustainable natural material is made. They even had the opportunity to produce their own lime, firing raw materials themselves with the use of a kiln.
With this core knowledge, they then moved on to explore more practical skills around stonemasonry; the students were able to gain hands-on experience of lime repointing, as well as the physically intense yet delicate artistry of stone carving. Each student began carving their own section of stone that would later make a collaborative arch, erected by combining all pieces of their work together as their final project.
Creating a Piece of Home
Each student’s section was emblazoned with an emblem that represented their home in the Bahamas – and on speaking to these students, it was clear how important and promising it was for them to be able to take these skills home with them; some of them were planning to use these skills to run their own businesses, or to improve their practice in their existing work at home, somewhere with an abundance of these natural resources and materials. Most of them spoke of how carving into stone was the most valuable and enjoyable skill that they’d learned during their time here at Heritage Lime, and when forming this striking and symbolic arch together, it was clear just how much knowledge they’d acquired to take home with them to the Bahamas.
When assembled together, these stones represented not only a beautiful dedication to their home and heritage thanks to their personal stone carvings; but it was also a culmination of a fortnight of skill-sharing, and a testament to their aptitude to learn all about this traditional skillset. Each student demonstrated infectious enthusiasm and curiosity, and their willingness to learn with these hands-on and challenging materials is exactly why it is so important that teaching opportunities such as these exist.
A Shared Commitment to Craft & Heritage
This project, made possible thanks to The King’s Foundation and their dedication to the teaching of traditional, rural crafts reflects not only the importance of keeping heritage skills alive, but – most importantly – just how vital it is to give enthusiastic students the keys to creating their own sustainable, enduring, and fulfilling career path. This in turn gives them the right tools to keep these traditions alive, and eventually pass their knowledge onto the future generation of stonemasons themselves.
At Heritage Lime, we’re firm believers that passing on the skills that we’ve learned is as vital as the work that we carry out on a day-to-day basis – and we’re incredibly proud to have been hand-selected by The King’s Foundation to pass our expertise and artistry on to a group of such enthusiastic and hard-working students.
The culmination of three weeks of hard work together was a beautiful BBQ that we shared on a sunny afternoon in our yard, before the Bahamian students carried on to Scotland where they’d be learning more hands-on traditional skills. It was an absolute pleasure to host every single one of them – and a huge thanks to all the team here at Heritage Lime for making this three-week journey possible.
