Lincoln Cathedral stonemason’s work tirelessly to keep the Cathedral looking at its best.
Last year £1.5 million was spent on building conservation.
The Cathedral Quarry supplies the stone which the stonemasons work on. Within 5 years there will be no useable stone left in the Quarry and so a new bed of rock needs to be sourced.
A series of tests are ongoing to check the feasibility of a new site, just north of the existing quarry. We have to be careful to make sure the stone matches that which has gone before. We also have to check that there is enough stone available to meet the demands of the Cathedral.
Stone of different sizes will be taken out of a test pit for investigation this week. This has been the result of 8 years of work for the Works Department.
Carol Heidschuster, Works Manager said:
‘This is very important, the Cathedral has an ongoing restoration programme for at least the next 25 years. Our major stonemasonry projects use in the region of 100 tonnes of Lincoln Limestone per year.
‘The Cathedral has owned a quarry on Riseholme Road since 1874 and this has been actively quarried since 1992. We only have 5 years of stone left.
‘If we find that the stone within the City of Lincoln Council owned land is suitable, this could provide us with another 15 years of stone. We are hugely grateful for the support of the City of Lincoln Council and local residents who have all enabled us get to this point where we can extract sample beds of stone.
‘Lincoln Cathedral is unique as it is built from stone which would have been extracted from within ¾ mile radius of the building itself. Therefore our options are now limited for what is likely to be available in the city due to urbanisation. The opportunity to have this source available to us is priceless.’
