Natural Stone Memorials
The latest news from the Stone Industry
Jon Gedling, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Director of Works, and Marie Smallwood, Historic England’s Development Advice Team Leader for the North West, at the Grade II listed Merchant Navy War Memorial on Liverpool Docks, which has been restored. The CWGC's approach to conservation has been formally recognised in a new agreement with Historic England.
Winners of this year's national Cemetery of the Year Awards at the presentation ceremony this month.
Ian Wilkins and Mandy Drummond from the MoD during NAMM Tradex in June when they explained what the MoD needs. The tenders to supply the memorials are now open online.
StoneSafe proprietor Anton Matthews maintains there is an error in the new British Standard for memorials (BS 8415) and has made a video showing how easy it is to push a memorial over when what he believes are the correct test conditions are used. The video (below) begins with two people trying to pull 150kg on The Blast Shop Stand at the NAMM Tradex exhibition this year. They could not do it.
HRH The Duke of Kent inspects the names cut by laser on to Cwt-y-Bugail slate in the new World War I memorial in Nottingam. His Royal Highness officially opened the memorial on 28 June.
A small part of the Commonweralth War Graves Commission's first visitor centre, where you can see the work of craftspeople including its stonemasons.
Odlings MCR will be back at NAMM Tradex at Warwickshire Exhbition Centre on 20 & 21 June with its equipment for memorial masons but sister company Odlings that sells memorials and most of the other UK memorial wholesalers have decided to take a gap year from Tradex this time.
David Francis, who has devoted a lifetime to the stone industry in the UK, recently by writing about and answering queries about memorials. He has now decided to retire.
NAMM is offering to re-test at no charge memorial fixing systems it approved before British Standard 8415 was revised this year. The systems now have to be tested in a 1m3 pit filled with sand and fine gravel.
The Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium where 3,605 British and Commonwealth soldiers are buried, each grave marked by a Portland limestone headstone without favour for rank or social position. Find out more by visiting the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's new online exhibition at https://shapingoursorrow.cwgc.org/
All photographs courtesy of the CWGC.
David Francis writes a regular column in Natural Stone Specialist magazine on topics relating to the memorial masonry side of the stone industry.
Prime ministers Theresa May and Charles Michel pay their respects to the first and last British soldiers to die in World War I at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s St Symphorien Military Cemetery today (9 November).
David Francis writes a column about memorial masonry in Natural Stone Specialist magazine.
Now BSI has said this is how memorial fixing systems should be tested, in a pit 1m x 1m and 1m deep. It is written into the new British Standard 8415.