Andrew Ziminski, a master stonemason based in Somerset, England, has spent decades repairing medieval churches and discovering the layered stories embedded in their ancient stones. Working primarily in the West Country, where approximately eighty percent of churches are over five hundred years old, Ziminski approaches his craft with the eye of both a conservator and an artist. He believes that three essential characteristics allow us to truly appreciate historic buildings: solidity, usefulness, and beauty. To these, he adds two more qualities specific to sacred spaces: the atmosphere created by centuries of prayer and the surviving craftwork that contains the spirit of its makers.
Ziminski's daily work reveals how time itself becomes an artistic medium, transforming raw stone into something that appears to have grown organically from the soil. He describes how eight-hundred-year-old plaster has weathered to match the color of surrounding rubble walls, and how stone slates are laid in diminishing courses that create the orderly beauty of fish scales or bird feathers. The stonemason must balance preservation with functionality, often working from scaffold platforms in harsh weather while maintaining an appreciation for the intoxicating beauty of time-worn materials. This appreciation can be challenging to convey to churchwardens who may not understand the importance of preserving a building's lived-in patina versus making it look new.
Among the many treasures Ziminski has encountered, the mid-twelfth-century font at St. Bridget's Church in Bridekirk, Cumbria, exemplifies the enduring connection between craft and creator. Carved from an exceptionally hard volcanic stone, the font features a remarkable self-portrait of the mason who made it, depicted mid-strike with mallet raised and chisel scrolling through stone as if it were butter. Above this Norman-era selfie, an inscription in runes and Early English lettering reads, "Richard he me wrought, and to this beauty me brought." Such direct testimony from medieval craftspeople is extraordinarily rare and demonstrates that even in the twelfth century, artisans understood their work as an act of creating beauty, not just functional objects.
The evolution from the austere magnificence of Norman architecture to the luminous elegance of Gothic design represents what Ziminski calls architecture becoming symbolic itself. The breakthrough came in 1144 when Abbot Suger and his master mason transformed the Basilica of Saint-Denis near Paris by introducing larger windows, ribbed vaults, and pointed arches borrowed from Arabic architectural advances. Suger believed radiant light was a manifestation of the Creator, leading to churches where walls of windows replaced thick Norman masonry. This engineering revolution allowed for fan vaults like the one Ziminski worked on at Sherborne Abbey in Dorset—a golden, tree-like canopy completed in 1490 that represents one of Gothic architecture's crowning achievements, combining precise engineering with breathtaking beauty.
The Reformation brought catastrophic destruction to this artistic heritage, as reformers systematically dismantled and burned nearly all of England's thirteen thousand rood screens and religious sculptures. Ziminski notes that today, only fragments remain, often discovered accidentally by stonemasons opening walls. The painted wooden head and foot from a twelfth-century crucifixion at All Hallows in South Cerney, Gloucestershire, survived as little more than gesso shells after beetles consumed the wood beneath. Despite this damage, the fragments possess what Ziminski calls "touching beauty"—Christ's closed eyes, delicate eyelashes, and downturned mouth conveying mysterious calm repose. Similarly, the brass memorial of Margaret Peyton at St. Andrew's in Isleham, Cambridgeshire, still conveys the stern elegance of the twenty-five-year-old who died in 1480, her brocade dress resembling modern Liberty prints.
The medieval screen at St. Helen's in Ranworth, Norfolk, stands as one of the finest and most complete survivors, demonstrating how craftsmanship and faith create continuity across centuries. The screen's painted panels depict saints in fine robes with gold brocade, though reformers defaced many faces with the fervor of gambling addicts scratching cards. The side chapel dedicated to Saint Mary, created in 1496, features the nursing Madonna where new mothers once offered thanksgiving. Michael, the churchwarden and informal custodian for over fifty years, recalled his childhood wonder when a restorer removed brown varnish from Saint George's dragon to reveal vivid ultramarine beneath. For Ziminski, such moments connect past and present, showing how the golden stain of time, as John Ruskin described it, continues to glow with the life of forgotten makers whose handmade quality still contains their spirit.
