Clare Howcutt-Kelly visits stonemasons Mick Teale and his son, Ben at one of the largest and most spectacular Elizabethan houses in the UK.

Burghley House in Lincolnshire is known for many things including the Horse Trials and has played a starring role in many period dramas including The Crown. And while all these things are wonderful, there’s two people who aren’t part of the cast or riding in on horseback but are equally as important. And that’s Mick Teale and his son Ben who are the in-house stonemasons.

The house was built between 1555 and 1587 by William Cecil who was Lord High Treasurer to Queen Elizabeth I. When we say he built it however, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t on the tools.

Like most powerful men of his time however, he wanted his house to have some serious kerb appeal and it most certainly did. With some 115 bedrooms and an array of architectural features that were designed to impress, it’s a show-stopper of the highest order.

And it’s believed he wanted to impress Queen Elizabeth I more than anyone else – creating a bedroom just for her. The twist in the tale is that a member of the Burghley household contracted smallpox and although she was close by, she wasn’t able to go inside the house. You’d be pretty annoyed, right?

The stone used to build the house is a golden limestone quarried from land owned by Cecil at nearby King’s Cliffe and the roof is Collyweston slate, also sourced locally. Much of what Mick and Ben work with is reclaimed from across Burghley’s vast estate which comprises many properties and buildings.

Unlike the stone, Mick and Ben aren’t native to the area – the Teale family relocated from Doncaster in 2023. Mick wasn’t new to Burghley, though. In 2021, he was part of the team who worked on the restoration of Burghley’s iconic 18th Century Lion Bridge designed by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown.

One of Burghley’s key features are its 76 Tuscan order chimneys – this might seem excessive but this was a man out to impress Elizabeth I remember – and her entourage of 100 people would surely need a few fires? On the roof there’s also decorative cupolas and pinnacles and much more besides.

The 16th century clock tower at Burghley House is a particularly striking feature which is topped by a pyramid shaped obelisk with a clock face flanked by lions. The columns are a nod to ancient Greek architectural order with stocky Doric columns at the bottom, then ionic with its scroll details known as volutes and on top, the most ornate Corinthian columns.

When I visit Ben and Mick we head up onto the roof so they can show me what they’ve been working on. The father son team recently took down some of the chimneys, taking them back to the top of the Romanesque columns before rebuilding and re-leading the joints. Each weighed around 2.5 tonnes which is no small feat.

Working and living with your dad isn’t for everyone but for these two, it works.

“Of course, it’s just the two of us but he does push me and it pushes me more than I could push myself. Sometimes he gets on my nerves but he’s my dad at the end of the day and he’s an incredibly experienced mason,” says Ben.

They have an ease about them and laugh frequently. Mick has been a stonemason for decades but Ben started off on a different path studying Sport and Exercise Therapy at Leeds Beckett University.

Currently training at Moulton College, Ben is an apprentice stonemason who mainly focuses on banker masonry.

I watch the two together and you can see how proud Mick is to have his son by his side. “He’s really got into stonemasonry. Ben talks a lot about stone even when we're at home and we have a laugh.”

Mick started his own journey into construction in 1994 originally training as a bricklayer at Doncaster College before being offered a job by Historic Property Restoration Ltd who put him through his banker masonry training at York College. He would go on to spend 23 years with the company working on some of the most significant monuments in the UK.

The length of his tenure is testament to the joy his work brings him and when you’re in his company, his expression tells me this is a person with many stories. And of course, Ben is fortunate enough to work with his dad everyday benefiting from his experience and a few wisecracks, no doubt.

“We’ve got to keep the heritage skills alive and engage the younger generation”, says Mick. “If we don’t, what will happen in 20 years’ time when we’ve all retired and we’ve got nobody coming through. Who’s going to look after these incredible buildings?”

Apprenticeships, he says, are massively important and while other trades are easily accessible via training at colleges across the UK, options to train in stonemasonry at college are limited. Currently Bath College, City & Guilds of London Art School, Moulton College and York College are the only educational institutes that offer it.

Ben explains the challenges: “I’m lucky to have my dad with so much experience but if you’re starting out in stonemasonry at college, it’s not like bricklaying where you’ll have a class of 60 people and someone has a mate who has a mate on a site who can help you get a job.”

Pride is a word that comes up a lot during our conversation once we head back to the workshop where the Teale’s ‘dust dog’, Olive, is excitedly waiting for us.

“Every piece we work on is a piece of pride”, Ben explains and Mick agrees, “but we don’t show off our heritage skills nearly enough. People will often look at a building, see the enormous features like the chimneys at Burghley and not realise someone’s made that. It’s all possible.”

Ben admits that he seeks perfection in his work and will tweak and tweak until he’s happy with it. “You’ve got pretty high standards. Sometimes too high,” Mick tells him. “It’s when you keep tweaking that you can make mistakes.”

This is the voice of a master mason as well as a proud dad. Olive snuggles into Mick as he ruffles her head. She has the easiest job of all – just being cute.

Before I leave, I ask Ben what his favourite part of the job is. He doesn’t need to think too long.

“I love being able to work on the house to be honest. It’s a great stature of work and I’m proud to be one of the many stonemasons who’ve worked on it over the years.”

For more about Burghley House visit burghley.co.uk

Follow Ben 

• Instagram at @benteale_ 

• TikTok @ben_teale18