Culture of Stonemasons

Far too often, if any thought is given to stonemasonry at all , it only concerns craft training and skill and has no thought for a culture that has a place in almost all societies and takes us back to the earliest civilisations. There is a vast resource of poetry, song, dance, story and even languages thats takes us back 5,000 years and across all inhabited continents and, in some cases, this intangible cultural heritage is held by only a handful of individuals.

Through an unbroken line from our older members we share and pass on the richness of the craft to our younger members, also always reaching out to stonemasons of other nationalities and cultures to learn and teach in equal measure.

We hold and use five of the masons' argots (cants) and a database of art, poems, stories, myths and legends, music and dance related to the craft and the craftsmen which we teach from and which is open to all craft members. We do not placidly accept the received histories of 'The Bishop who built the cathedral' or 'The King that built the castle' and proudly hold a database of stonemasons, going back to ancient civilisations in some cases, with as much information as we can find about those who were truly responsible for creating the built heritage we still see today.