Restoration - Stone carving

This series of three photographs taken by Antonia Reeve, show a head being remodelled and fitted to one of the damaged statues on the Monument.

The first photo shows a niche in the Monument containing the character statue of Gurth. Gurth is depicted as a rather wild character, dressed in sheepskin and holding a stave, with a small dog at his feet. But he is in a poor condition - his head is missing and he is covered in white bird ‘guano’.

A sculptor/stonemason would model missing elements and details, like Gurth's head, in clay from the original photograph (as shown in the second image above). Once this was complete, the newly modelled head was checked against the original figure for size and accuracy (see photo 3) and a stone replacement carved, which was then attached to the statue.

This was done for all replacement sculptural details.