Carve his name with pride: Andrew Ziminsky rebuilds the West Country

Andrew Ziminski is the man who rebuilt the West Country. For 30 years, this skilled stonemason has renovated some of Britain’s greatest buildings. Along the way, he has acquired an unparalleled understanding of this country’s stones.

He got hooked as a young man when a mason asked him if he noticed that tea tasted different in different parts of the country. That was because the land’s personality had an effect on its water; and so it is with stones. It’s oolitic limestone that gives Bath its golden tint. It’s granite that gives Aberdeen its mighty, hard-as-rock profile — fizzing, incidentally, with a batsqueak of radiation.

Until the 18th century and the arrival of canals and, later, trains, buildings were largely made of the stone beneath them — except in places without building stone nearby, such as Westminster Abbey. That’s where Ziminski served his apprenticeship 30 years ago, working on the Caen stone imported at huge expense from Normandy.

But his home patch, the West Country, is rich in slate, granite, sandstone and the greatest building stone of all, oolitic limestone, formed by a billion ancient sea creatures and, joy of joys for a stonemason, cuttable in any direction. The author skilfully explains the history of these stones and — this is what makes his book so entertaining — relates them to jobs he has done.

And what jobs! He worked on West Kennet Long Barrow, dating from 3,650 BC. This is built out of sarsen stones and thinly split forest marble — a flat limestone, carried over 25 miles from Somerset’s Mendip hills. In a job which I’m sure is much more complicated than it sounds, Andrew and his business partner Andy just use their hands to put back the barrow’s fallen stones, sticking them in place with chalky mud — the oldest of all building materials — and a backing mortar.