For your first major freeform carving commission an elephant is a pretty big order. But it was one mason Oliver Hurst was willing to accept when the opportunity arose.

And it arose when a wealthy private client in Yorkshire decided he wanted an elephant’s head in the rock wall of a swimming pool enclosure he was creating on his estate. A piece of rock protruding reminded him of an elephant, so he asked Oliver, who he had heard of through a mutual acquaintance, if he could carve an elephant’s head into the rock.

Although only 25, Oliver had served his apprenticeship with Stonecraft and honed his masonry skills with York college before setting up his own company, Yorkshire Masonry Specialists, two years ago.

He was joined in June this year by Joe Hayton, who he met at York College. Joe is two years younger than Oliver and had reached the same point Oliver had reached two years earlier of wanting to branch out on his own. He had already taken some private carving commissions and wanted to pursue that line of work. “When I discovered Oliver was doing this kind of work and he asked me to join him it was difficult to say no,” says Joe.

Oliver started carving the elephant in July last year and was joined by Joe to finish it. They want to do more artistic work and have created the identity of HaytonHurst for themselves.

The original intention with the elephant carving had been to include a baby elephant near the end of the adult’s trunk. But the man who commissioned the carving died in an accident while it was being carried out (which is commemorated on a plaque carved on the back of the trunk) and the plans for the work were curtailed. Oliver was asked just to finish off what he was doing.

He says carving into the rock face was more difficult than working on a banker not just because of the scale of the work but also because he had to accommodate the variations in the hardness of the stone.

In order to get the scale of the animal, Oliver simply looked at photographs of elephants and drew what he intended to produce on the rock face (see the picture on the previous pages). He did not even make preliminary sketches before setting out his ideas on the stone.

He says he has won some interesting work since starting out on his own and another project he is currently working on is a three-tier memorial fountain.

He says both he and Joe would be delighted to take on more sculpture work. “We have both got a passion for doing this kind of thing.”

In fact, they like it so much they have just bought some Carrara marble that they plan to use to practice carving torsos in their spare time.