For only the second time, the European Stone Festival came to the UK this year when it was held at Lincoln Cathedral on 22-23 June. There were 134 stonemasons and carvers from 12 countries taking part, with work that interpreted the theme of ‘food & farming’, chosen to reflect the rural nature of Lincolnshire and the help given by the National Farmers Union and local hotels and restaurants in promoting the event.

The Festival has become a major part of European stonemasonry’s calendar since it was inaugurated by Freiburg Technical College for Stonemasonry & Stone Carving in Germany in 1999. It travels around Europe, being held in a different city each year. The first (and until now, only) time it had come to the UK was in 2003, when it was at Canterbury Cathedral.

City’s vie for the privilege of hosting the event and its venue is already determined up to 2019. After that it might return to Lincoln because the Cathedral enjoyed hosting it so much this year it has already put in a bid to do so again.

At Lincoln, the Festival was jointly organised by Carol Heidschuster, Works Manager of Lincoln Cathedral, and Sally Oliver, Works Co-ordinator. It was run in conjunction with 1,000 Years of Traditional Crafts at Lincoln Castle, which faces the Cathedral at the top of Steep Hill in the City, and a traditional food fair in between the two buildings run by the Rotary Club, giving the whole area the feel of a celebration for the weekend.

Other local organisations also pitched in, with Lincoln Hotel feeding the stone workers during the event and the Masonic Hall accommodating them during their stay.

The Worshipful Company of Masons donated £5,000 to the event and had a marquee in the grounds of the Cathedral during it to promote the craft of stonemasonry. It was continuing its campaign of collecting masons’ marks to create a register of them in order for future generations to be able to identify those who have worked on particular buildings.

In another marquee, the Cathedral Works Department was demonstrating its skills in wood and leadwork, as well as masonry.

“People didn’t realise the Cathedral employs 42 people with these skills, which includes nine masons, one of them an apprentice,” says Carol Heidschuster, who is celebrating her 25th anniversary in the Cathedral’s Works Department and could hardly have had a better way of marking the occasion.

Lincoln auctioneer JH Walter donated its services to sell the works produced during the weekend at the end of the event. On the Saturday it was even involved in producing a catalogue of the works for the auction. And the auction on Sunday afternoon was attended by more than 600 people and raised more than £50,000.

The top price of £2,600 was paid for apprentice Thomas Webster’s carving of an anvil. It was bought by a man who said his family used to be blacksmiths. Several other carvings went for more than £1,000 and bids for all the lots were in the hundreds.

The local branch of builders merchant Travis Perkins supplied 20 pallet loads of building blocks that were used to build bankers for the masons to work on.

Stone handtool maker G Gibson & Co donated prizes of its tools for the winning carvers. The judging panel consisted of Carol Heidschuster, Terje Skjeldam from Trondheim, where the Festival was held last year, Norbert Stoffel from Strasbourg and Bernward Fiedler from the Freiburg Technical College.

Carol Heidschuster said afterwards: “The event exceeded all our expectations. The atmosphere was wonderful. The goodwill towards the Cathedral as a result of this is tremendous. We’ve had such a good time.”

When Lincoln was chosen as the venue for the Festival, Carol attended the next two European Stone Festivals (held in Freiburg in 2011 and Trondheim last year) to see how they were run. “I had in mind what I needed to do and could see the key thing was for publicity. By linking up with the NFU and getting the support of local businesses we got the message out.

“The public response was absolutely amazing – the emails we’ve had! One person said he had intended to come for half-an-hour and had stayed for five hours. He said he had bought one of the pieces at the auction on Sunday.”

Want to see more? There are videos taken during the event on YouTube.