Craft Skills Training

Woodchester Mansion provides great opportunities for craft skills training, especially in stone masonry. Students require both good tuition and time and practice to develop into the experienced craftsmen needed to work on heritage buildings throughout the country. The Mansion Trust welcomes trainee stonemasons, under skilled supervision, to assist with the conservation of the building. The Trust pioneered the concept of on-site training, a living classroom, about fifteen years ago.

A longstanding partnership with Bath College has been established. The student masons come one day a week for a term, and gain hands-on experience conserving and repairing a real building. The Woodchester Mansion Trust benefits in terms of savings on labour costs.

The Prince’s Foundation also bring trainees and provide partnership funding for work experience at Woodchester Mansion. HM the King was our patron for over twenty years. When Prince of Wales he attended the One Big Room heritage training conference held at the Mansion in 2005. The Radcliffe Trust have assisted with financial support for stonemasonry tutors.

We used to offer working space to apprentices from the Stonemasons’ Guild of St Stephen, but they have now finished their training.

The Mansion is traditionally constructed from local Cotswold limestone. An understanding of how to work with lime mortar is essential to its conservation, and to the repair of thousands of old buildings in the belt of limestone across England. The Trust holds occasional courses in the use of lime mortar for the public.

The webpage on tertiary education and CPD and the gallery of images from training sessions may also be of interest.

For info on our popular stone carving workshops for the public, click here.