The “topping out” of Salisbury Cathedral last week marked the end of a 37-year restoration project, which has returned the 14th-century building to its former glory. But as the scaffolding is dismantled over the next few weeks, after the traditional ceremony of completion and blessing, a small part of the humanity of the endeavour will disappear from view. Six small stone carvings, including the figure of a female stonemason, will be hidden away among its parapets, invisible from the ground.
For centuries, stonemasons have left such concealed signatures in the great buildings of Europe. In creating a record of herself as a female mason, the carver Carol Pike is following the example of a medieval forebear who chiselled what is believed to be a 12th-century self-portrait atop a pillar in Spain’s Santiago de Compostela cathedral.
