Apethorpe Hall: masons marks

English Heritage Summaries 2005/2006

EH Project Number:	4695ANL
Funded Unit:	Trent & Peak Archaeological Unit

Background
Apethorpe Hall, Lincolnshire, is a major country house with building phases from the 15th – 18th centuries and an early 20th-century restoration period. It is constructed of stone, with ashlar used for most visible surfaces. Extensive documentary research on the building has been undertaken by the former RCHM(E).

Reasons for and circumstances of the project
English Heritage is carrying out an extensive programme of repair, conservation and analysis of the building, and this complete survey of the masons’ marks is an integral part of the recording. The Archive and Report will be deposited with English Heritage at the completion of the project.

Aims and Objectives
The masons’ marks at Apethorpe present an opportunity both to provide more information about the construction and phasing of the building and also to inform the wider debate about the organisation of masons in the 16th and 17th centuries. However, even recent extensive studies have not addressed the subject from an archaeological perspective that has involved detailed examination of the fabric of the buildings.

Masons’ Marks
Masons’ marks are those marks made by stone-cutters and encompasses autograph marks, placing marks, quality control marks, quarry marks and preliminary design marks. The study of masons’ marks has undergone a radical change in the last twenty years; a great deal of work has been undertaken recently in France, Germany and the Netherlands, as well as in the UK, and new methodologies developed to facilitate analysis of marks. In particular the applications of computer analysis to large data sets of masons’ marks has made possible the interpretation of whole sections of major buildings.
By examining the distribution patterns of marks it has been possible to comment on the effects of breaks in construction; on the organisation of teams of masons; on the probable length of building campaigns and on the sequence of construction of the project. Much of this work has been carried out on medieval ecclesiastical buildings, where there is little direct information about the organisation of the labour force and the progress of construction. Later buildings, for which records are more likely to survive, may well provide a more detailed picture, with comparisons made between the evidence provided by the masons’ marks and that supplied by the documentary record.

Methodology
Examine the building and record to site each occurrence of masons’ marks, using scaffolding where available. Analysis will involve coding of marks from a pre-existing master coding frame and recording on computer database. This will then be interrogated to reveal distribution patterns of individual marks and groups of marks across the building. The report will include the distribution patterns and the archive will include the raw data. Analysis of related buildings in the vicinity and further afield is also proposed, to demonstrate the relationship between the masons’ work at Apethorpe and that in churches and other houses.

Timetable
Report to be submitted by January 31st 2006.

 

This page was published on 18/01/2006