Gloucester Stone Carving Festival returned to the city for the spring bank holiday in May. It attracted even more carvers and visitors than it had when it was launched two years ago by Carrie Horwood of Cat’s Eye Carving, who also ran it this time. NSS went along to join in the Festival fun.

Animals. That was the theme of the Gloucester Stone Carving Festival held during the Spring Bank Holiday weekend, coinciding with the city’s Tall Ships Festival in the docks opposite.

The stone carving festival was launched by local stone carver Carrie Horwood of Cat’s Eye Carving two years ago during the previous Tall Ships Festival. She said then she intended to make it a two-yearly event alongside the tall ships festival.

Carrie had once again donated one of her stone carvings (an elephant’s head in Tetbury limestone) as the main prize of a raffle that raised £1,000. She also ran a have-a-go stall so visitors could try carving a piece of stone for themselves during the festival.

This is a particularly friendly gathering of enthusiastic stoneworkers. Last time there were 18 of them taking part, this time, as the festival becomes established, there were 23. They thoroughly enjoyed the city’s hospitality after the first day’s work, heartily joining in the singing of sea shanties while sampling ample quantities of the local brews.

The site of the carving festival was again the Llanthony Secunda Priory – and the festival will contribute more than £2,000 towards the conservation of the Priory buildings.

After a bit less than two days’ hard work, the carvings were judged. The carvers themselves voted on each others’ work and chose James Wheeler’s ‘Hippy Hippo’ as their favourite. James also won this prize at the festival two years ago, that time with his drunken sailor (see NSS June 2013).

The event sponsors chose as their favourite piece Oliver Annaly’s ‘Seal pup was pleased when his big friend arrived’, depicting a seal pup sitting on the back of a walrus that has flattened a seal fur hunter.

The hosts from the Llanthony Secunda Priory Trust chose as their favourite work Michael Gardner’s ‘Hypno Ram’.

The stone used for the carvings was local Cotswold Tetbury limestone from the nearby Veizey’s Quarry, generously donated by Stone Supplies (Cotswolds), while toolmaker RH&G Travis & Son supplied prizes for the winning carvings.

Steven Travis from the company shared a stall at the festival with Neville and Justine Watkins of Alpha-Cut Products. Both companies showed tools that were on sale throughout the event.

At the conclusion of the festival, all the carvings produced during it were auctioned off by Mark Stafford Lovett, a professional from local auctioneers Nock Deighton. There was quite a crowd gathered for the auction and although successful bidders got bargains the sale raised more than £3,000.

Although all the pieces had been produced in a maximum of 14 hours, the participants had pulled out all the stops in the atmosphere of friendly competition. As Carrie Horwood, who has taken part in such competitions herself, said, it’s amazing what a burst of energy and adrenelin the carvers get. “If we worked like this all year long… well, we probably wouldn’t survive the year.“

The festival two years ago had gone on into the bank holiday Monday. It was decided this time to finish on the Sunday, but now Carrie is asking participants if they would prefer a three-day event next time she stages it in 2017.

It is intended to hold the next festival on the same site and again help towards the restoration of the ruins by the Llanthony Secunda Priory Trust in order to bring some of the buildings back into use as a visitor and training centre. The Priory was taken from the church during the Dissolution of the Monastries in the 16th century, after which the buildings fell nto disrepair and stones were pilfered for other local building projects.

The festival was also to raise the profile of stonemasonry as a skilled and respected craft, which is part of the aim of the Masons’ Livery Company. As a result, it came on board to sponsor some of the participants and was collecting more masons marks for its register during the weekend.

Others involved included the Gloucester Geology Trust with fossil hunting, the Newport Ship Project in medieval splendour and Cotswold Archeaology with information about its digs and finds.