Our Guild is a community of working stonemasons which was raised from the roots of the historic Stonemasons' Guild of St. Stephen.  At a time when traditional, world-class craft training is becoming a rarity and few people recognise the time and specialist skill required to train the Master Masons of the next generation, The Guild's reformation was necessary to uphold the highest standards of craft training through classical stonemasonry apprenticeships, offered to a select few.   Those trained by The Guild will be responsible, as their Masters were before them, for passing on the mysteries of the craft in their time.  We cannot hope to preserve the world's irreplaceable stone heritage or to produce the defining stone monuments of our own age without first training the people who will take up the tools. 

 

Beyond this most fundamental aim of continuing quality training, The Guild is dedicated to preserving and sharing the fascinating history and culture that surrounds the craft of stonemasonry.  Our education work with the public, through museums, universities, art institutions and others is part of this effort to disseminate, through the oral tradition, the stories, songs, poems and languages that constitute what UNESCO describes as the 'intangible cultural heritage' of our craft. 

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The traditional tripartite* Guild template is perhaps more relevant today than ever before; it encourages fellowship, total tolerance and equality, freedom of speech, a democratic 'flattened hierarchy' and partnership with all like-minded craftspeople and craft organisations nationally and internationally.  *The collegiate, frith and company branches of the Guild structure, oversee academic and educational aims, Guild members' welfare and day-to-day running of The Guild respectively.