This project, delivered as a collaboration between Durham County Council and Historic England, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is an extension to the Grade I listed Castle and is sited along the line of a medieval retaining wall of the original castle complex.

The museum houses an exhibition of faith in Britain and an environmentally controlled art store. The building type is secular but seeks to communicate a heightened sense of the sacred to reflect the museum’s contents.
The external envelope is formed of a single material, Cop Crag sandstone, quarried locally in Northumberland. The stone is cut and laid in different ways: smooth ashlar walling is the dominant external wall treatment with a split-faced plinth on the east elevation and random rubble to the loading bay, and large pieces for details including the projecting fins on the gable, crossing finials, lintels and sills. 

The walls were 100mm thick with 5mm joints, pointed up
The stone is cut and laid in different ways: smooth ashlar walling is the dominant external wall treatment with a split-faced plinth on the east elevation and random rubble to the loading bay; as rainscreen cladding to the steeply pitched roof; and large pieces for details including the projecting fins on the gable, crossing finials, lintels and sills. 

The stone has a golden tone and is naturally varied in its colour and patination. The building form is monolithic, and it is the lively stone that takes centre stage, providing variation and interest. 

This project, delivered as a collaboration between Durham County Council and Historic England, and funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, is an extension to the Grade I listed Castle and is sited along the line of a medieval retaining wall of the original castle complex.

The museum houses an exhibition of faith in Britain and an environmentally controlled art store. The building type is secular but seeks to communicate a heightened sense of the sacred to reflect the museum’s contents.

The external envelope is formed of a single material, Cop Crag sandstone, quarried locally in Northumberland. The stone is cut and laid as rainscreen cladding to the steeply pitched roof; and large pieces for details including the projecting fins on the gable, crossing finials, lintels and sills. 

The roof was 75mm Open-jointed sandstone rainscreen, on proprietary cladding support channels on aluminium standing seam roof system on profiled metal deck, on 100 x 50 RHS truss structure.

The stone has a golden tone and is naturally varied in its colour and patination. The building form is monolithic, and it is the lively stone that takes centre stage, providing variation and interest. 

Originally built in 1893 -95, this house is Sir Edwin Lutyens’s first recognised house as lead Architect, this project saw the addition of a new extension to the property to house a swimming pool and ancillary rooms.

The project team recognised the importance of following the lead of the original stonemasonry detailing, the language of tooling, of the mouldings and the proportions.

The new and original walls are indistinguishable from each other in texture, coursing, finish and detail.  When the colours tone down in the short term, it will be impossible to tell the difference.

No expense has been spared in making sure the quality of the stonemasonry is first rate, and this is a credit to the craftspeople and designers alike.

Matching of the coursed, squared Bargate rubble walling stone and mortar is a particularly difficult thing to achieve well, and this has been particularly well done.

The coursing, tooling and bedding of the bath stone dressings to the mullioned windows is also very well considered.

This private chapel draws its design inspiration locally; from the idea of an upturned Suffolk fishing boat with tower and gables designed to challenge the eye.

The external loadbearing walls are built of solid masonry, which was tanked, and then 200mm of insulation shaped (both ways in areas) and adhered to the profile to achieve Building Control requirements.

Given the nature of the building and its intended use, with an open-ended design life, the build quality of every element had to be as good as it could get.  The project drew on specialist trades people and artists from around the country to deliver this special and most private space.

The flint work and the stone dressings on the chapel are outstanding. The design of the chapel in a boat shape with a typical East Anglian round tower sits beautifully into the landscape. The form gave huge challenges in the setting out and execution of the work and the complexity was added to by the tower leaning and tapering.  

Careful thought has to go into using flints on returns, which is unusual.  This was resolved using hidden stainless-steel supports and ties to the flints on the corners,
The openings are well weathered. Looking down from the tower onto the roof and parapets the Judges fully appreciate the masons’ setting out skills and their attention to detail in construction. Every coping stone is curved in two planes and each joint to the capping is of a different angle. The judges could not observe any distortion from the desired shape. 

The stone floor of the chapel is very carefully selected and perfectly laid. All details, including those at junctions, are perfectly resolved. 

Located in the heart of Belfast, this imposing and extensive 5-storey Grade B1 Listed Building dating from 1900 was totally gutted by fire in 2018.

The completed and highly successful 4-year restoration project of the building’s three major elevations is being recognised as one of the largest ever undertaken in Northern Ireland.

Matching the original building stone, some 1136 tons of Locharbriggs red sandstone was sourced from Dumfriesshire for the challenging remedial work that also included salvage and repurposing original sandstone wherever possible; all set above 200sqm of polished granite clad Ground floor walling with a black base-course.

The six precisely detailed replacement 7-metre-high column shafts and first floor framed principal elevation over-entrance arch in Balmoral Granite also readily contribute to reinstating the original grandeur.

Given the consistently outstanding detail of the completed project, a high degree of collaborative teamwork, quality site control and exceptional craft skill is apparent; all being exercised throughout the post-fire analysis, decision-making processes and on-site realisation. 

The reported removal and replacement of over 1000 tons of intricately carved and worked sandstone, also involved implementing closely controlled environment and ethical working practices. 

The 800-year-old Salisbury Cathedral is home to the Magna Carta and one of the UK most recognised and visited cathedrals.

This latest phase of work is the final part of a 37-year restoration project which has seen the large-scale repair and restoration which, across the full span of time, has cost in excess of £30 million.

This final phase of repair and conservation work to the East Gable and the repair of the North and South Gable Pinnacles of the Cathedral is the culmination of 38 years of work to save the building and provide it with a sustainable future.  It involves the life-time careers of many people, not least the current Clerk of Works, Gary Price.

The Chicksgrove Limestone used is the same seam of limestone which provided the original stone for the building of the Cathedral over 800 years ago. At the height of the works, the quarrying was supplying 75 tonnes a year. Over the duration of the entire project, it has equated to nearly 2,000 tonnes, mainly compromising of block stone and some sawn six side material.   

Rhodes House is a grade II* listed building designed and built between 1926 and 1929 by Sir Herbert Baker. The building has undergone a significant redevelopment to restore and conserve the existing 1920s architecture while creating a mix of living and learning spaces.

The internal package was focused on the design, supply and installation of a grand post-tensioned staircase, including balustrades and surrounding paving details.

The new sculptural helical stair realises Herbert Baker’s ambition for the Rotunda to be ‘the centre of beauty and interest in the building’, and a place that ‘would arrest the attention of all who entered there’. 

Based on the hexagonal motif and modules of the existing floor, the balustrade is perforated with a pattern that adds delicacy to the stone.

The softened profile and curved base of the balustrade and steps are a subtle but contemporary response to the existing stone floor pattern and the stone seating around Baker’s Rotunda.

This project was an advance element of the wider £250 million regeneration of the Sighthill area, delivering greater connection to the City Centre, and nearby Strathclyde University, Queen Street Station and Glasgow’s most popular shopping locations.

The community-orientated scheme successful integrates existing, new and pending residential developments and reconnects previously severed urban areas.

Across an almost 1km span, this project incorporates granite block and slab integrated pedestrian walkways with kerb-delineated cycle path and vehicular roads.

The consistent precision and discipline of the entire concept, masonry detailing, and implementation is exemplary in every way - readily exemplified by the straight alignment of fine granite block jointing that is also double-cambered and width-variable in layout over the Bridge span.

Along the tree-lined and granite paved pedestrian walkway, the same attention to disciplined masonry detailing continues to be paid through to the granite terminating piazza at Springfield Road. Such an integrated progression of carefully designed refuges, variable-sized paving slab panels, bench seating, angular paved alignments, and piazzas are all highly successful in their intention, aesthetic appeal, appearance and function. 

ocated on an exposed sea-scaped south-facing location overlooking the Dornoch Firth, the sunken design of Seaview Gardens aligns centrally on the traditionally built solid-masonry Seaview House.

Maximising on the adaptation of reclaimed sandstone masonry by careful and discerning grading, sorting, coursing and coping, the project offers a positive exemplar in sustainability, adeptness and reduction of waste.

The traditionally coursed and coped dry-stone walling has been built with a battered internal face, this along with projecting segmental recesses structurally containing the pressure of external raised soil berms, graded against the wallface to deflect prevailing winds. 

These incorporated features have successfully created an effective, stable and calm microclimate within which the garden also benefits from internal masonry solar heat retention. As a result, near-perfect environmental conditions have been created within which the subsequent rich and varied ecological planting has become well established, and external social uses possible.

he Mitchell Library is the largest public reference library in Europe and the centre of Glasgow's public library system.

In the past, the Library had been aggressively cleaned, when it was also commonplace to use cementitious mortars for masonry repair work leading to the need to address safety-related problems created by failing eroded and loose stonework. 
Set against this remnant situation, the quality and consistency of craftsmanship exercised during the recent project is exemplary in every detail.

The Judges were impressed with the re-carved upper torso and head section of the damaged Caryatid with Lyre, in petrographically relevant Peak Moor sandstone as well as the skilled uniformity, quality, indenting regularity and sensitive integration of the 16 replacement Ionic Capital scrolls across the entire Granville Street elevation.  

Whilst work-invisible, the careful and sensitive cored-removal of original rusting iron cramps and dowels and their replacement with stainless steel fixings is to be welcomed.

They noted that the integrated excellence, skill and diligence of all carved indent work is accurate, consistent, precise, meticulous and exemplary in every respect.

Conceived and designed by award-winning graduate of the Royal College of Art, Anglea Palmer, these truly unique pieces form part of a wider exhibition entitled “Deep Time, Uncovering our Hidden Past”.

The Torus of Time encompasses our 3-billion-year history and entire evolution. Its circular form echoes the ground-breaking discoveries of the great Enlightenment figure, Dr James Hutton, the 'Father of Modern Geology'. He was the first to describe the endless cyclical processes of the Earth, illustrated in his revolutionary paper of 1788, 'The Theory of the Earth' in which he concluded: '…we find no vestige of a beginning and no prospect of an end.'

'Tower of Time' represents our global history on earth as well as the complete geological time-travel of the United Kingdom as we know it today. From the 3-billion-year-old Lewisian Gneiss base from Barra in the Outer Hebrides, sixteen stones rise that represent each geological period, carefully sourced from quarries the length and breadth of the UK and with stones representing each nation.

Both pieces are crafted from the same range of indigenous UK stones including some of our best-known materials including Portland Stone, Yorkstone, Cornish Granite and Scottish Sandstone, alongside some lesser known but equally beautiful stones including Scottish Schist and Gneiss, Derbyshire Limestone and Aeolian Sandstone.