My interest in making things goes back to earliest childhood. I have a vivid memory of ripping open my presents on Christmas Day, aged about 9, hoping to find the much-hoped for tool kit. Father Christmas had indeed brought me a tool kit, but to my great disappointment it was a toy one, with plastic tools that I couldn’t use to make the chairs, train sets and wooden boxes I had seen so vividly in my mind’s eye.

Fifteen years later, whilst studying for a MSc in Historic Conservation, I signed up for a weekend course in Restoration Carving with the Orton Trust, a charity based in rural Northamptonshire, whose aim is to foster the traditional skills of stone masonry and carving.

As soon as the hammer and chisel were in my hands, I was hooked. Something about the heft of the mallet in my hand, the rhythmic thunk of the chisel as it connected with stone, and the sulphurous whiff of limestone dust told me I was home. This was how I wanted to earn my living!

On completing my MSc I undertook a Modern Apprenticeship in stone masonry and carving at the City of Bath College, followed by a year at a letter cutting studio in Oxfordshire studying letterform, design and letter carving in stone. I was able to observe at close hand the whole process of developing a client’s initial ideas into a design and then into a completed piece of work.

I spent several years working in different parts of the UK and Ireland, building my experience in carving a variety of stones from the British Isles, including Kilkenny marble, Donegal sandstone, Cumbrian slate and the famous Bath limestone, before coming back to my roots and settling in Abergavenny in 2007, where I established my business, Jane Turner Stone Carver and Letter-cutter, working from a studio in the wilderness at the bottom of my garden.

If you would like to discuss a project I would be happy to hear from you. Please go to the contact page to get in touch.