Cambridgeshire company Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey are playing a key role in a £7million project to restore one of London\'s most architecturally significant churches - St George\'s in Bloomsbury, London.

The craftsmen at the stone carving and masonry company based at Bottisham have been working on the design and carving of two lions and two unicorns that will once again adorn the distinctive stepped spire of St George\'s. The originals were removed in the late 19th century.

Tim Crawley, art director of Fairhaven and a stone carver with more than 20 years experience, is pictured here on top of one of the 3.5m high, 15 tonne beasts.

He says: "These creatures will be accurate replicas of the originals based on evidence collected from the original building accounts, Hawksmoor\'s own design drawings, and 19th century prints of the church.

"We start the process by creating small-scale sketch models of the creatures in the desired pose. The next stage is to produce one-third size plaster models and finally the creatures are carved by hand in Portland limestone. "The whole project has taken our team of stonemasons and carvers two years so far. We will be delighted and very proud to see the results of our efforts standing above St George\'s next year."

St George\'s dates from 1730 and is one of six churches designed by the famous Baroque architect Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil and former assistant of Sir Christopher Wren. In 2001, St George\'s became a World Monuments Fund heritage site. At the same time it received a $5million bequest from the estate of American philanthropist Paul Mellon, who had a great interest in 18th century English art and architecture. Following this, the Robert Wilson Challenge Fund gave a further £1million and funding has also been received from English Heritage.

You can follow the progress of the sculptures via the internet.

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