Following the announcement in the Natural Stone Show Catalogue in April that the Masons’ Livery Company is creating a searchable online register of contemporary masons’ marks using software developed for fingerprint identification, Peter Godfrey of Kingston upon Hull kindly sent NSS a copy of marks he has collected from churches in East Yorkshire. He has compiled them into a 32page full-colour booklet that he hopes will encourage others to collect more such marks.

He tells us: “In the spring of 2011 I set out to find and record stonemasons marks (and others) in the churches of East Yorkshire.

“Some 150 churches and 2,400 marks later, I have produced a pictorial guide to them using my own freehand drawings and photographs.”

The Livery company has so far received about 150 of the marks of today’s masons that will enable future generations to put a name to the marks left on masonry. If you would like to add your mark to the collection, send a picture of it with your name, address, company name and telephone number to this magazine (nss@qmj.co.uk) and we will pass it on.