Royal approval for natural stone

(Naturstein, 2006)

British stonemason Peter Carroll has restored some of England's most historic buildings, including those belonging to the Royal Family. He is now based in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he spoke to David Killick.

Historic buildings such as grand palaces and houses of Parliament have carved a niche in the public psyche. They are instantly identifiable and expressive of time and place.

Think of Berlin's Bundestag, or the Brandenburg Gate with its famous Quadriga.

In England, the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle, all serve a prominent role as symbols of national identity. They are famous not just in England but around the world.

All these buildings are built from natural stone. Many are hundreds of years old. English architect and master stonemason Peter Carroll feels privileged to have worked on these beautiful buildings, helping to restore them and keep them in top shape for future generations.

Having been engrossed with natural stone all his professional life, Peter's work has also taken him to some fascinating places in other parts of the globe.

He was born in Cambridge, southern England, in 1962. His parents served in the Royal Air Force and traveled extensively, so Peter got a world tour from an early age. In 1987 he qualified as an architect, at Cambridge University. His first project was a dream job: restoring the stonework on the Houses of Parliament in London. These buildings date from the 1850s, and were designed in the neo-Gothic style. They include the famous Big Ben clock tower. The facades were carefully restored with Lincolnshire limestone.

"I ended up being offered a position with the stonemasonry company, and eventually bought the restoration company," says Peter. "We specialized in new build and restoration, which meant prestigious buildings such as Windsor Castle, St Paul's Cathedral, and Hampton Court."

At Hampton Court, built for Cardinal Wolsey in the reign of Henry VIII (16th century), Peter restored the privy garden, with its elaborate walls, for Prince Charles. "The privy garden was planned many years ago, and it was Prince Charles's dream to complete the design."

Stone walls, fountains and steps are all part of the landscaping.

Peter has also worked on Highgrove, the prince's official residence, where he did stone work for the estate offices. Peter, who has had lunch with Prince Charles on several occasions, describes the Prince as a committed environmentalist with a vision for sustainable design and a deep respect for history. The prince's ideas, at one time considered "far out" or non-mainstream, are now becoming more widely accepted. "I had a synergy with Prince Charles. He too had a liking and understanding of natural stone and its uses."

Another historic Royal building was Windsor Castle. This is England's oldest Royal residence. It is also the largest inhabited castle in the world, and the oldest in continuous occupation - for more than 900 years. Peter replaced some of the stonework of the Round Tower, which had become eroded with age.

Then in 1999 Peter and wife Sally made a radical move, and decided to buy a marble mine, Yule Marble, just outside Aspen, Colorado, in the United States. The mine had once been the largest not just in the United States, but the world. Its white marble was used for grand public buildings in Washington, D.C., including the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. In its heyday, the mine had employed 1800 masons.

But it had closed after World War 2. The mine remained a family operation and employed just eight men.

Peter established a contract to supply the Veterans' Association of America with all the marble for American servicemen around the world.

"It was an interesting experience," Peter recalls. "It was 4000m above sea level, so we had a lot of snow."

Peter and Sally lived in a small town called Redstone - in a wooden house.

At the same time, Peter still owned a stone company in Britain, and in 1990, he received one of his most impressive commissions, a request from a Sheikh in Kuwait, Sheikh Al Amar Akle, to supply a complete palace. The Sheikh's former palace had been burnt to the ground during the first Gulf War. Peter recalls visiting Kuwait and seeing the devastation inflicted on the environment through raging oil fires. The new place was built from Cotswold stone. It's a slice of Old England in the midst of the scorching Kuwaiti desert.

In 1998 Peter sold the US marble mine to a Canadian concern and returned with his family to England, where he bought and re-opened a limestone mine outside Bath, in southwest England. "It had an interesting history. It had been requisitioned by the War Ministry for underground munitions storage in World War 2."

Fortunately, no unused explosives were found lying about! Peter's team rebored the mine tunnels using equipment previously used in gold mining in South Africa.

Another interesting project involved the Tower of London. Peter supplied Purbeck marble for new cases to hold the Crown Jewels.

He also completed the cleaning and restoration of the stonework on Kensington Palace, as well as some new buildings.

Buckingham Palace was another special project. When an intruder penetrated palace security and ended up in the Queen's private bedroom, Peter watched television footage of the stone balustrades he had built.

In 2000, Peter helped restore Windsor Castle after it had been damaged in a major fire.

An overseas commission was working on a post office in Nova Scotia, in northeast Canada. The building had been built in the 8th century Georgian style out of Bath stone brought out as ship's ballast, but had suffered badly from erosion in the harsh climate.

One of his most dangerous projects was rebuilding the Law Courts in Belfast, Northern Ireland, after they had been bombed. "Quite often the IRA would take shots at tradesmen so everyone worked behind two-inch (5cm) steel plate and wore flak jackets."

It was a scary time, says Sally.

In 2004, the family decided to move to the other side of the globe, to New Zealand, where they have bought a comfortable country house, just outside Christchurch in the South Island. Sally already had family in New Zealand, and they had visited previously on holiday. Children Patrick, 14, Angus, 12, and Blythe, 8, are settling in well.

Peter has set up a new business, the Natural Stone Company Ltd, importing paving stone from Kota, in northwest India. The stone makes a far superior, long-lasting alternative to concrete, he says. It comes in a variety of colours, from dusty orange to bright yellow, to streaky brown and grey - all from individual quarries.

Getting to the quarries requires a 12-hour train journey from Delhi, then six hours by car. Workers don't use forklifts, but stack all the pieces of "riven", or cut stone, by hand. They are transported to Mumbai, then via Hong Kong to Lyttelton, New Zealand.

"Stone is one of those things that gets into your blood," says Peter. "Because it's so variable, unlike man-made products, where you just go through a straightforward manufacturing process. It depends on the geology of the ground you are working with. Ten feet (3m) away conditions can change and you are just mining waste. Working in natural materials is a challenge."

It's worth it, however, says Peter. "The advantage is you have got a finished product that will last for centuries."

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