Greener Peebles (in the Borders town of the same name) is a Scottish charity that offers over 2500 volunteering hours annually to all ages and all abilities. Through their community garden, they provide free food for all volunteers in addition to pick-your-own days for the whole community. Scotland’s Year of Stories was commemorated in 2022, a year in which stories from, or inspired by, Scotland are celebrated, written, created and read. Greener Peebles was one of the charities that have benefited from community funding and among the many events, they have created a permanent art trail in the garden.
When they approached me to ask if I would create three stepping stones for the garden, I was delighted! My stones form a cohesive link between the entrance to the garden and a piece carved from wood in the pine trees at the back (created by Nik Savage).
Stepping across the stones;
‘I Remember When…’
Towards the trees where you’ll find the wooden seat of the Story Swing and;
‘The sun rose through these pines again’
To create the stones I chose two large slabs of reclaimed Caithness flag stone. I wanted to use a stone that had a textured surface and working (a little) with Caithness stone before, I love the contrast between the natural muddy-brown surface and the almost obsidian or jet-like quality of the stone when it is worked and polished. Using my angle-grinder, I partly cut through the largest slab to form the ‘remember’ and ‘when’ stones, finally separating them using a claw chisel. I randomly ground and cut the edges of all three stone with my claw chisel and angle-grinder to give them a more ‘natural’ look and feel. Following this, I started sanding and polishing- from 80 grade with my Makita finishing sander, another two grades using this, then onto hand sanding with wet-and-dry paper down to 1200 grade.
The lettering I choose was based on the Book of Kells quill formations from the George Bain Celtic Art book. After drawing the individual letters and getting the visual spacing correct between each one, I transferred the words to the stone slabs using white carbon paper. I was finally ready to start carving and thoroughly enjoyed this. Much time was spent keeping my chisels sharp due to the hardness of Caithness stone These stones are really the first large V-cut lettering pieces I’ve done and despite the riven (uneven) surface, the hardness of Caithness stone and the letter style, my client and I were very pleased with the final result.
On site, the stones were aligned in respect to each other, trenches cut and levelled, and the bottom filled with a thick bed of Semi-dry mortar mix.
HATCH BURN CARVE 