Gloucester’s nautically themed Stone Carving Festival was organised by Carrie Horwood, a professional stone sculptor of Cats Eye Carving, in conjunction with the Tall Ships Festival that is held every other year at the city’s docks. It was a three day event over the bank holiday at the end of May – a more modest affair than the 10-day Festival of Stone in Bristol that followed it (see page 18) but thoroughly enjoyed by the 18 masons and carvers who took part and the 1,000 people who visited.

The Stone Carving Festival took place at Llanthony Secunda Priory in Gloucester’s Historic Docks with the support of the Tall Ships Festival organisers who encouraged visitors to call into the stone event as well.

Among the competitors was Yannick Nieder from Hannover in Germany who Carrie discovered had learnt his skills from the same Master (Georg Orendi) as Carrie had studied under.

The stone used was Tetbury limestone from Veizey’s Quarry donated by Stone Supplies (Cotswolds) and prizes for the winning works were tools donated by handtool maker G Gibson & Co of Leeds, as they were at Bristol.

The competitors’ choice of the best piece was James Wheeler’s drunken sailer in a boat. Tom Kenrick’s turtle was the work that the visitors voted as their favourite and the apprentice award went to Alastair Mason of Weymouth College for his octopus. He is showing all the signs of having a good career ahead of him because he came to Gloucester having just won the Boss Carving Competition at Weymouth College.

All the carvings were auctioned off at the end of the Festival on Monday afternoon by a professional auctioneer from Nock Deighton, who donated his time to the event. The National Farmers Union gave Carrie £100 towards the insurance for the event, a local firm donated fire extinguishers, although they got them back afterwards because they were not needed, and there was Heritage Lottery funding via Gloucester City Council.

It is an indication of the success of the event that Carrie spent 22 hours during the weekend showing people how to carve stone on her ‘have-a-go’ stall – much more than she had expected.

She had carved a stone mermaid figurehead beforehand as a raffle prize, which raised more than £1,500 and contributed towards donations the Stonecarving Festival made to the Llanthony Secunda Priory Trust (£1,635 ) and Gloucester Geology Trust (£1,090).

At the end, the carvers clubbed together and bought Carrie a bottle of Champagne and a bunch of flowers in appreciation.

The tall ships will be back in Gloucester in 2015 and Carrie says the second Gloucester Stone Carving Festival will be there.