The pictures here show the preparation of quarried stone for the Hovercraft Column in the workshops of Wells Cathedral Stonemasons. This company was formed for the major restoration of the magnificent front of Wells Cathedral. See:-  www.stone-mason.co.uk . Now a private company, in recent years they have worked on the Houses of Parliament which were originally built in 1843 by the contactors Grissell and Peto at about the time Sir Samuel Morton Peto purchased the Somerleyton Estate from Lord Sydney Godolphin Osborne.

The stone itself, pictured top left, takes its name from the village of Clipsham in Rutland and has been known since Roman times. Its earliest recorded use was at Windsor Castle from 1363 to 1368.

In more recent times it has been used for  Salisbury Cathedral Spire, Winchester Law Courts, Wells Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, and the famous Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral Tower, completed in 2005, and of course many other buildings of distinction. Indeed it was used to rebuild the House of Commons after bombing in WW2; a historic connection with Somerleyton.