0:00:03 > 0:00:08While we've been going about on our travels we've met a lot of craftsmen
0:00:08 > 0:00:12of all sorts - wallpaperers, plasterers, lead men, everything.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14You know, stonemasons.
0:00:14 > 0:00:20It's really good to know that there's still craftsmen and craft ladies around who, when given the right
0:00:20 > 0:00:24amount of time, are still capable of doing work that's just as good
0:00:24 > 0:00:27a quality as what they did in the olden days.
0:00:52 > 0:00:56Fred served his apprenticeship as a joiner and he always had
0:00:56 > 0:00:59a great appreciation for the skills of the carpenters,
0:00:59 > 0:01:05wood carvers and stonemasons who built Britain's great castles, cathedrals and country houses.
0:01:10 > 0:01:16This love of fine craftsmanship led us to a greater appreciation of the skills of the craftsmen
0:01:16 > 0:01:21of the past and of the work of craftsmen and women today who carry on the traditions.
0:01:21 > 0:01:28At junior school, as a small boy, I were always top of the class in woodwork.
0:01:28 > 0:01:33I don't even think they have woodwork lessons now at schools. It's a bit sad that really.
0:01:33 > 0:01:39But nevertheless, when I became 15 years old I started to serve my time as a joiner.
0:01:39 > 0:01:45I stuck to it till I was 21 years old which meant I was a fully time-served
0:01:45 > 0:01:49joiner and I got my City and Guilds at night school and all of that.
0:01:49 > 0:01:56Of course, I've always had a great interest in wooden structures of any sort, you know, like ships
0:01:56 > 0:02:02and buildings and especially like the period in Tudor times when they built
0:02:02 > 0:02:06really the biggest wooden structures that were ever knocked up in a way.
0:02:06 > 0:02:13Here behind me this is little Moreton Hall in Cheshire,
0:02:13 > 0:02:17a fine example of Tudor woodwork and heavy carpentry.
0:02:18 > 0:02:25They basically set off with a plinth of stone or brick and then made these frames.
0:02:25 > 0:02:30They weren't very big, they only did one story at once and stuck them up
0:02:30 > 0:02:36on the edge of the stonework and then interlaced them with all sorts of bracing pieces, as you can see.
0:02:36 > 0:02:41Then they infilled it all with lath and plaster and that's where,
0:02:41 > 0:02:47you know, this famous half-timbered building saying comes from.
0:02:48 > 0:02:54One of the things that makes little Moreton stand out is
0:02:54 > 0:03:00the fact that there's all this lovely stuff in between the framing which, of course, is all made of wood.
0:03:00 > 0:03:05The beautiful four leaf clovers are called quatrefoils.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09They're sawn out of one solid lump of wood to that shape.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13In the olden days it was designated that the more
0:03:13 > 0:03:18fancy work you had on your half timbered house, the richer you were.
0:03:18 > 0:03:23So the Moreton's must have been quite well to do.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28The man who did the job, Richard Dale, left his mark behind here, here on this window frame.
0:03:28 > 0:03:35It says Richard Dale carpenter made this window by the grace of God.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39It's like an early bit of advertising for window frame making.
0:03:39 > 0:03:46Considering the amount of acreage of land that the Moreton's owned, they mustn't have been short of a
0:03:46 > 0:03:50few oak trees when they started building this place, you know.
0:03:50 > 0:03:55How many sort of workmen Mr Dale had is another matter.
0:03:55 > 0:03:57I don't really know but I know summat,
0:03:57 > 0:04:02when they were boring all these hundreds of holes for the pegs that
0:04:02 > 0:04:07hold the whole thing together, when they hit a knot, there'd have been a lot of head scratching and swearing.
0:04:07 > 0:04:12It wouldn't have been very pleasant at all having done a bit of hole boring in fairly hard wood,
0:04:12 > 0:04:19but I should imagine that the timber would arrive here still in the round and would be split with iron wedges
0:04:19 > 0:04:27and then cleaned up with an ads and then the mortises and the tenons worked on the ends of each piece.
0:04:27 > 0:04:30I suppose that when the framing were
0:04:30 > 0:04:37more or less completed the men would move in to fill in all the voids with the wattle and daub.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40Make it sort of weatherproof in a way.
0:04:40 > 0:04:46I think it's sometimes very easy to think that handcraft skills are no longer necessary in the 21st century
0:04:46 > 0:04:49but Fred shows us that these are still living crafts.
0:04:49 > 0:04:55When he takes us, say to the Globe Theatre, and shows us the timber frame construction and talks to the
0:04:55 > 0:05:01men and women who were involved in building this place from scratch, he shows us that there are ways of
0:05:01 > 0:05:07building, ways of ornamenting our lives that perhaps we should reconsider and use more often.
0:05:07 > 0:05:12It is a timber frame structure and we know that certainly the Globe
0:05:12 > 0:05:14and the other theatres were timber frame structures.
0:05:14 > 0:05:17It's the way the timer framing was done.
0:05:17 > 0:05:22I mean, this is something that we've really, perhaps in the last 15 or 20 years, really come to understand
0:05:22 > 0:05:25through reconstructing them at open air museums.
0:05:25 > 0:05:29There what one does is carefully dismantles an old building.
0:05:29 > 0:05:34You then do archaeological analysis of the joints, the tool marks and the techniques.
0:05:34 > 0:05:36That gives you a chance to look inside
0:05:36 > 0:05:40the joints and see exactly how they drilled out the joints.
0:05:40 > 0:05:46Fred's passion for everything old because it was craftsman made.
0:05:46 > 0:05:48It was handmade, it wasn't made by a machine.
0:05:48 > 0:05:52It was actually a man's hands which made the items
0:05:52 > 0:05:58and so everything which was handmade Fred had an interest for because it had been actually made.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04Fred always enjoyed meeting craftsmen like Peter McCurd
0:06:04 > 0:06:07who built the timber frame for the reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe.
0:06:07 > 0:06:11For his next series he went to visit his workshop in Berkshire where they
0:06:11 > 0:06:16were making a new crook beam roof for a barn near Glastonbury.
0:06:17 > 0:06:26So you see these are the main collars and these are the upper, upper crook, second tier of crooks.
0:06:26 > 0:06:32Then we've got in between them these intermediate principles which have also got a little collar.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36These are the arcade plates which, of course, run the whole length of the building.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40Now we're just marking in these pearlings, ones that run along
0:06:40 > 0:06:44this way and we're also marking in all these small curbed wind braces.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47And how long will it be before it's finished?
0:06:47 > 0:06:51We're gonna start putting this up on site in about ten days time.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55We're gonna work through till probably the beginning of February with the frame.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57Then the tiles will go on.
0:06:57 > 0:06:59Before the snow comes.
0:06:59 > 0:07:03Well, we hope it will wait until March for that.
0:07:03 > 0:07:09The real problem today is that we have a government and all they want to do is put people into university.
0:07:09 > 0:07:16They don't realise that to be a good skilled worker you need a high level of intelligence, so we should
0:07:16 > 0:07:24be going back to the time when we only had 15/20% of our intelligent people going into universities.
0:07:24 > 0:07:32The rest of them should be going into practical work, going through technical colleges, going through
0:07:32 > 0:07:37craft apprenticeships and realising that the skilled worker,
0:07:37 > 0:07:41you really have to be highly intelligent to do a skilled job.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44Of course, you find all sorts of different
0:07:44 > 0:07:49sizes of pegs depending on the size of timber and the size of joints
0:07:49 > 0:07:51Here's a little one from the top of a pair of rafters
0:07:51 > 0:07:54and then here we've got a much, much bigger one.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58This is the sort of size of pegs we're gonna be using on the barn here from Pilton
0:07:58 > 0:08:01and even bigger in fact than that.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04- Bigger diameter.- Certainly bigger diameter, yeah, yeah.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08So we can have a look and see how the pegs are made, if you like?
0:08:08 > 0:08:10Might even get you to make one.
0:08:10 > 0:08:12Oh, I'll have a go.
0:08:12 > 0:08:17Well, you know, we start off by spitting them out of the log.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21To spit out the individual squares we use a tool like this which is called a frow.
0:08:21 > 0:08:23I've never seen one of them before.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27- Well, it's not really an edge tool, it doesn't cut the timber.- No, no.
0:08:27 > 0:08:29It's just splitting effect, yeah.
0:08:29 > 0:08:37That's right. Once we've split out a square, or a rough square, which we know is, at one end at
0:08:37 > 0:08:41- least, it's the correct size. - Size for the finished article.
0:08:41 > 0:08:44That's right. Then we use this little shaving horse.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47- It's called an adrornay. - You have to wittle it down to size.
0:08:47 > 0:08:49That's right, yeah. Would you like to have a go?
0:08:49 > 0:08:54Yeah, now that I know you want 'em octagonal shape and not round, I'll be all right.
0:08:56 > 0:08:57Right.
0:09:01 > 0:09:04It's a bit bent, innit for starters?
0:09:06 > 0:09:07Ummm ahh,
0:09:09 > 0:09:11umm ha ha.
0:09:15 > 0:09:17Cut!
0:09:17 > 0:09:22Some aspects of Fred, and the fact he was sort of a craftsman
0:09:22 > 0:09:29in many ways. I'd call a craftsman someone who just naturally has a feel for the things he works with.
0:09:34 > 0:09:35Getting nearer.
0:09:35 > 0:09:38In that respect he was
0:09:38 > 0:09:41a little out of his time but also at the forefront.
0:09:41 > 0:09:44I think we're now changing and
0:09:44 > 0:09:53more and more people are giving up their sort of office jobs and wanting to go back to
0:09:53 > 0:09:58the craft techniques that Fred used because you just get so much more out of them.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01They're so much more satisfying
0:10:01 > 0:10:03in terms of what the end result is.
0:10:03 > 0:10:07There's nothing better than seeing something finished
0:10:07 > 0:10:10rather than a piece of paper that you pass on to someone else.
0:10:10 > 0:10:14- I'm getting a bit old for this. Now then, John.- How are you doing?
0:10:14 > 0:10:18There's no roofs like this where I come from, they're all made of slate.
0:10:18 > 0:10:24What really stops the rain coming in, you know, cos I've been inside and there's no under felt is there?
0:10:24 > 0:10:26No, no. It's really just the angle.
0:10:26 > 0:10:28The way the straw is laying on the roof.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31Yeah, yeah. When you're up here amongst it you can see why.
0:10:31 > 0:10:38- Yeah.- It'll hit every individual straw before it gets anywhere near through it, won't it?
0:10:38 > 0:10:40We've got a thickness of about two foot.
0:10:40 > 0:10:45We've got an undercoat, then we've got a top coat, so even if it goes
0:10:45 > 0:10:47through this top coat, it'll still come out in the undercoat.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49What stops it all slurring off?
0:10:49 > 0:10:52It's all sparred on to the base coat with hazel spars.
0:10:52 > 0:10:55They're pushed in through into the base coat.
0:10:55 > 0:10:58And really it's the angle of the roof, the angle of the straws.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00Water just drips off each one.
0:11:00 > 0:11:02What keeps the other on, like the base coat, you know?
0:11:02 > 0:11:06The base coat is tied to the rafters, then we spar on top of that.
0:11:09 > 0:11:12Right up at the ridge there's that lovely crisscross design,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16is that designed to keep it together at the top?
0:11:16 > 0:11:20Well, at the very top we just bend the straw over the top to keep it waterproof.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24That's the simplest sort of ridge that it would have had hundreds of years ago that were doing on there.
0:11:24 > 0:11:27- It's not ornamental. - You see some with a double thickness.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32- Yeah, yeah. That's very ornamental but that wouldn't have been like that 150 years ago.- No, no, no.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35We're trying to keep it plain and simple.
0:11:35 > 0:11:36- Yeah, yeah.- As it would've been.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39They did this in Roman times, weren't they?
0:11:39 > 0:11:40That's right and before that.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43Almost the same.
0:11:43 > 0:11:44Going back to the Iron Age really.
0:11:44 > 0:11:47- Yeah, yeah.- The old thatching around it is like that.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51I've noticed at the far end it's gone all darker colour, hasn't it?
0:11:51 > 0:11:53Yeah, well we've been here three months.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56So obviously the fresh stuff we put on has now quite dark.
0:11:56 > 0:11:58- Yeah, it's like dye. - It will darken down.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02In six months this will be quite a dark colour with the sun and the rain.
0:12:02 > 0:12:09- And all the bits that are blowing about, do they sort of break off and blow away?- They will do in time.
0:12:09 > 0:12:11That's how the actual roof wears.
0:12:11 > 0:12:14I mean, we'll lose about a quarter of an inch of that
0:12:14 > 0:12:17every year and that's what gives the roof its life really.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20Or that's what takes away cos that gives it its lifespan.
0:12:20 > 0:12:23Yeah, so
0:12:23 > 0:12:25how thin has it got to have got down to before...?
0:12:25 > 0:12:29Well, it's got about six inches to come off before it gets down to the fixings.
0:12:29 > 0:12:31That's really the life the roof.
0:12:31 > 0:12:33- And then you've got to do it again? - Yes.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36Long straw like this will probably last 15 years.
0:12:36 > 0:12:38It's the shortest lasting material.
0:12:38 > 0:12:45- It seems to me as though you could take this top layer off and still use the stuff underneath.- You could.
0:12:45 > 0:12:48The next time this is thatched we'll just take this top layer off and then we'll thatch
0:12:48 > 0:12:51over, well take the bottom part out and thatch over the top again.
0:12:51 > 0:12:54Probably take about five or six inches of this old stuff off then.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Well, it'll be old then.
0:12:57 > 0:13:03He just enjoyed craftsmanship of any standard, of any type.
0:13:03 > 0:13:08As long as it was really good he could appreciate the work that had gone into it.
0:13:08 > 0:13:10Are you going to let me have a go?
0:13:10 > 0:13:12- Yeah, help yourself. - I'm gonna have a do at this.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18Wait a minute, I'll do it proper, how's that?
0:13:29 > 0:13:31Now then, we're here.
0:13:31 > 0:13:34What's the first move?
0:13:34 > 0:13:36Just take a double handful off there.
0:13:36 > 0:13:38A double handful.
0:13:38 > 0:13:40- Yeah. That's plenty, yeah. - About that much?
0:13:40 > 0:13:43Yep.
0:13:43 > 0:13:45I mean, I'm only an apprentice so I don't
0:13:45 > 0:13:47want too much.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49Right, what do I do next?
0:13:49 > 0:13:51- Lay it on there.- Yeah.
0:13:51 > 0:13:54That's it.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58- Spread it out. - Spread it out, what like that?
0:13:58 > 0:14:01That's it. Then take a little bond of straw.
0:14:01 > 0:14:06- Yeah.- And if you take some of those spars on your left there, keep one of those like a staple. That's it.
0:14:06 > 0:14:07- Pump it in again?- Yep.
0:14:11 > 0:14:13- How's that?- That's all right.
0:14:13 > 0:14:15Looking good, innit?
0:14:15 > 0:14:17That'll keep the water out for another hundred years.
0:14:17 > 0:14:19Where does it come from this stuff?
0:14:19 > 0:14:22- Well, this has all come from Poland, actually.- Yeah, yeah, I wonder why?
0:14:22 > 0:14:25Well, the reason is we don't have the old
0:14:25 > 0:14:29varieties of straw in England and to the length that this has grown.
0:14:29 > 0:14:31This is a rye straw which grows very long.
0:14:31 > 0:14:35Yeah, yeah. How many thatchers are there left now in England?
0:14:35 > 0:14:38Too many, too many, about...
0:14:38 > 0:14:41When somebody says to me about steeplejacking...
0:14:41 > 0:14:44How many steeplejacks, you must be the only one?
0:14:44 > 0:14:45And there's bloody hundreds of them!
0:14:45 > 0:14:49There's about 1,500 all together, so there's quite a lot really.
0:14:49 > 0:14:52- Oh, aye, there's a fair bit of stiff competition there?- Yeah.
0:14:52 > 0:14:55Yeah, I noticed them wetting it down there
0:14:55 > 0:14:59before they winded it all up into bundles.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02Yeah, the idea of that is so it packs together tighter
0:15:02 > 0:15:05and doesn't slip about so much and when it's dry it's very slippery.
0:15:05 > 0:15:07- It's very waxy as you can see.- Yeah.
0:15:07 > 0:15:10- You have to keep it damp to keep it nice and tight. - Bit like your haircut job.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12That's it, yeah, the old Brylcreem, yeah.
0:15:12 > 0:15:15Yeah, but there can't be many thatched roofs as big as this.
0:15:15 > 0:15:17It's almost like a cathedral, isn't it?
0:15:17 > 0:15:21Yeah, I mean it's an old tithe barn.
0:15:21 > 0:15:24There's not that many tithe barns about, not as big as this certainly.
0:15:24 > 0:15:27No, I've never seen a thatched roof this big.
0:15:27 > 0:15:34One of the places I most remember going to on location, and realising just how much skill Fred had
0:15:34 > 0:15:36and he could turn his hand to anything,
0:15:36 > 0:15:41was when we went to the Welsh slate mining museum in North Wales.
0:15:41 > 0:15:44The boys there, the gang of men that were working there and had done for
0:15:44 > 0:15:49many years, would make it look so easy the way they cleaved the slate.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55I thought to myself, well Fred's not going to be able to do this although
0:15:55 > 0:15:59as ever he's enthusiastic about doing what he's going to do next.
0:15:59 > 0:16:04And he sat there and he took the piece of iron and chop, chop, chop.
0:16:04 > 0:16:10I think everybody there, it's fair to say, were amazed that he'd managed to do that because according
0:16:10 > 0:16:14to one of the men, I think the apprenticeship was something like five years or something
0:16:14 > 0:16:17like that before you're allowed to do that and Fred had just done it.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20It was like watching a little bit of magic.
0:16:20 > 0:16:24In fact one of the programmes where he has a joyous look on his face
0:16:24 > 0:16:28because he's actually, wow, I can do this. It's fabulous, very good.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32We'll get you another lot by dinnertime.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35You'd be lucky if we'd done six.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38I think Fred will have opened the eyes of
0:16:38 > 0:16:42lots of people to the...
0:16:42 > 0:16:51joy of craftsmanship and to the small scale perfection that people put into things.
0:16:51 > 0:16:54The fact that they're not just making things work,
0:16:54 > 0:17:00they're making things work well and they're making things look good as they do their jobs.
0:17:00 > 0:17:07And looking good was certainly one of the main criteria in the design of the house of Dun near Montrose.
0:17:07 > 0:17:14The great glory of the interior of the house of Dunn is this magnificent saloon with its wonderful plastering
0:17:14 > 0:17:17which was done by a man called Joseph Ensor.
0:17:17 > 0:17:24Believe it or not, for all this magnificent ornamentation he only got 216 quid, you know.
0:17:24 > 0:17:25It sounds unbelievable, doesn't it?
0:17:25 > 0:17:30That weren't just for plastering this one single room, it were for doing the whole house.
0:17:30 > 0:17:35When we go into a place like the house of Dun it's not always easy to understand how it
0:17:35 > 0:17:39was constructed, how it was made but he takes it apart bit by bit.
0:17:39 > 0:17:43He looks at details like the ornamental plaster work, he shows
0:17:43 > 0:17:50us how craftsmen and craftswomen contributed each in their own way to creating a masterpiece.
0:17:50 > 0:17:56Most people coming into a room like this would have little idea as to how they went about doing it.
0:17:56 > 0:18:04Going back to my days at art school, they had an ornamental plastering class where everything nearly were
0:18:04 > 0:18:11made on the benches and then screwed and wired in secret ways to the walls and then touched up afterwards.
0:18:11 > 0:18:15I mean, in here there's quite a lot of interesting stuff, you know.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19Up there there's a basket and rumour has it that they actually
0:18:19 > 0:18:25used a real basket and dipped it in liquid plaster and then, of course, carefully fitted it to the wall.
0:18:25 > 0:18:33There's a violin that's reputed to be real underneath the layer of plaster and then up there there's sea shells
0:18:33 > 0:18:38that, you know, they're too perfect to have been homemade, as you might say.
0:18:38 > 0:18:44But the whole lot has been made on benches and then stuck to the wall.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47The main thing we've got to do is preparation before we mix the plaster.
0:18:47 > 0:18:51If not everything's ready, the plaster will set on us.
0:18:51 > 0:18:53- Oh, yeah. - This will be some hessium.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56We're going to reinforce the panels of this ceiling.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01- If we pre-cut it, it will save some time.- Yeah.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04I have some wooden laths which we'll prepare as well.
0:19:04 > 0:19:09- Yeah, yeah, like reinforcing bars. - That's it.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13If we need to screw it to the ceiling, it acts as a washer.
0:19:13 > 0:19:17- If you'd like to just prepare yours the same.- Yeah.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20This will just snap quite easy.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25- Can I do that?- Yeah, carry on.
0:19:25 > 0:19:32It's very rarely today that we can make anything better than we could in the past.
0:19:32 > 0:19:40We can make it faster, we can make it cheaper but it's rare that we can actually make anything better
0:19:40 > 0:19:44than we could have done you know 150/200 years ago.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53The lumps are disappearing now, aren't they?
0:19:53 > 0:19:56Just pour a small amount that we're gonna brush in.
0:19:56 > 0:19:57Yeah.
0:20:02 > 0:20:03- Lovely, that's it.- All right.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05Put the plaster down.
0:20:05 > 0:20:07Right, if we just brush this all over.
0:20:07 > 0:20:09Yeah.
0:20:11 > 0:20:13That's it.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20- That looks wonderful and using our turts head brushes...- Yeah.
0:20:20 > 0:20:21One for you.
0:20:21 > 0:20:25- We'll actually splash.- Yeah.
0:20:25 > 0:20:31Just get a nice liberal amount of plaster and then we actually splash
0:20:31 > 0:20:35into the mould to get a good thickness and it also...
0:20:35 > 0:20:38- This is a bit messy this, isn't it? - Oh, it's a lovely messy job.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45Right.
0:20:47 > 0:20:49Right, with the scrim,
0:20:51 > 0:20:56just lay this over the top. Lovely.
0:20:58 > 0:21:04That's it. Pile that on the back, make sure the laths and it's all rubbed down below the surface.
0:21:04 > 0:21:06- Yeah.- So that will...
0:21:06 > 0:21:09when we come to strike off.
0:21:09 > 0:21:12- Yeah.- That's looking, should be OK.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15Then just strike off over the top.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17I can see you've used plaster before.
0:21:17 > 0:21:20Well, concrete.
0:21:20 > 0:21:2420 years ago apprenticeships started to die.
0:21:24 > 0:21:28The gold standard is to get A-levels and go to university.
0:21:28 > 0:21:32We no longer value journeyman tradesman who used
0:21:32 > 0:21:36to spend five years learning their trade to make things.
0:21:36 > 0:21:42We've seen somewhat of a resurgence of that over the last five years or so
0:21:42 > 0:21:44through the Government's modern apprenticeship programme.
0:21:44 > 0:21:49I think Fred was very keen to support those sort of things for
0:21:49 > 0:21:51people who would rather work with their hands
0:21:51 > 0:21:54than necessarily follow higher education.
0:21:54 > 0:21:57I saw you notice one of the rather nice ceiling roses on the way in so I thought we'd err...
0:21:57 > 0:21:59Yeah. Is that part of it?
0:21:59 > 0:22:03I thought we'd make some leaves. This is the rose. I thought we'd make some leaves to go on it.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07So again, with this you just pour a generous amount in.
0:22:07 > 0:22:09That should be fine.
0:22:09 > 0:22:12Listen, just push it down on the top.
0:22:12 > 0:22:14Starting from the back,
0:22:14 > 0:22:16pushing down.
0:22:16 > 0:22:20Any of the excess plaster can just spill out,
0:22:20 > 0:22:22collect the holes on the top.
0:22:22 > 0:22:24Just give it a good generous push.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28That's wonderful. There we go.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30We'll come back in ten minutes, see what they look like.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33The craft skills are always under threat.
0:22:33 > 0:22:36We have a real shortage of them at the moment.
0:22:36 > 0:22:40We need more crafts people who can get out there and help restore the buildings,
0:22:40 > 0:22:44otherwise the costs of restoration shoots through the roof.
0:22:44 > 0:22:50Fred was very useful in showing these people were out there, that they were working hard to preserve our heritage
0:22:50 > 0:22:53and how central they are towards keeping it as a living heritage.
0:22:53 > 0:22:55- See how our leaves are doing.- Yeah.
0:22:57 > 0:22:59Oh.
0:22:59 > 0:23:01- That's it.- Yeah.
0:23:01 > 0:23:04This is the frightening bit. Bend it away.
0:23:04 > 0:23:06That should help release the,
0:23:06 > 0:23:09help release the leaf.
0:23:09 > 0:23:10Just pull these out.
0:23:12 > 0:23:15- There we go. - Oh, that's better.- This is
0:23:15 > 0:23:17just the flash.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20Yeah, it's beautiful that, innit?
0:23:20 > 0:23:24- A small fettle.- Yeah, yeah. - Stick it to our base and we have
0:23:26 > 0:23:28one of the leaves of our rose.
0:23:28 > 0:23:30Yeah, very nice.
0:23:30 > 0:23:36Sometimes it's hard to know exactly how a thing is made. It can appear
0:23:36 > 0:23:42to us so simple because it works so beautifully but what Fred does is he really takes it apart for us and
0:23:42 > 0:23:50shows us how much skill goes in to each element say of plasterwork or a stone carving.
0:23:50 > 0:23:57When he goes to York Minster and he talks to the stonemasons there, these are things that it's really
0:23:57 > 0:24:02very difficult to see from the ground but they are incredibly complex and very beautiful objects.
0:24:02 > 0:24:11And it's the stonemasons who have worked hard over many years to have the best bits of the past and also
0:24:11 > 0:24:14be re-working it so that it's there for the future.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18Well, Fred, now we're in the carver's shop.
0:24:18 > 0:24:20Very nice indeed in here.
0:24:20 > 0:24:26And we've got Martin here, carving one of the arc stones for the South West doorway.
0:24:26 > 0:24:31The stone's been masoned at the masonry shop, as you saw, the geometric work.
0:24:31 > 0:24:36And now you can see areas of the stone which have been left for the foliage.
0:24:36 > 0:24:41Yeah, that's quite beautiful that leaf with all that hollowed out at back, innit?
0:24:41 > 0:24:44Yes, it's delicate work.
0:24:44 > 0:24:47Shall we go round the corner and have a word with Martin?
0:24:47 > 0:24:49Now then, good afternoon, Martin.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51- Hello, Fred.- Howdy.
0:24:51 > 0:24:57Yeah, I can see now the three stages of making them beautiful leaves that are on this side.
0:24:57 > 0:25:02Must take a long time. How long does it take you to do like three leaves?
0:25:02 > 0:25:06Well, it's probably about another week's work left, probably a couple of weeks in all.
0:25:06 > 0:25:13Yeah, when people walk by York Minster they don't appreciate all that great effort.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15How do you go about making these holes down the back?
0:25:15 > 0:25:20heck of a tricky operation with such delicacy, isn't it really?
0:25:20 > 0:25:22I suppose once the leaf is established...
0:25:22 > 0:25:28- Yeah, like down here but a bit nearer than what that one is like? - Yeah, you see the form.
0:25:28 > 0:25:34You can actually begin to drill through behind and pierce through with smaller chisels.
0:25:34 > 0:25:37Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, when you've finished one of them, just getting it
0:25:37 > 0:25:42up there, you know, like the thought of damaging it must be terrific.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45I'd be scared stiff of taking it out.
0:25:45 > 0:25:48You only need a little knock, don't you, and a big lump off corner and...
0:25:48 > 0:25:53- Once it goes out of here we forget it ever existed.- You start on next block. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:25:53 > 0:25:58Yeah, I always wished I could do something of that nature myself.
0:25:58 > 0:26:00You can have a go, there you go.
0:26:00 > 0:26:03Yes. I don't think so really.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07I'm better on big lumps. They let me have a go on a big lump next door.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09I'm OK on big lumps.
0:26:09 > 0:26:11Well, I think the fact there has been this rise in interest in
0:26:11 > 0:26:14conservation means that there are people around.
0:26:14 > 0:26:18I think, the craftsmen had a very narrow brush with extinction, if you like, because there was
0:26:18 > 0:26:21a time when no-one could see any point in doing anything by hand.
0:26:21 > 0:26:27But just in time, as people did get more interested in conserving buildings, there was enough interest
0:26:27 > 0:26:29and still enough people left who could teach, because that's the other
0:26:29 > 0:26:34thing about craftsmanship, it is traditional and it's very difficult to pass it on once it's died out.
0:26:34 > 0:26:41But there are now schools of stonemasons, letter cutters, hand printers.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44Not very many but enough to keep it going.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46How long have you actually been doing it?
0:26:46 > 0:26:48I've been doing it about 15 years now.
0:26:48 > 0:26:50I've been actually at the Minster ten years.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53When you first started did you drop any clangers?
0:26:53 > 0:26:56Umm very, very difficult at first. Very very hard.
0:26:56 > 0:26:59Did you ever get disillusioned with your efforts, you know?
0:26:59 > 0:27:01I still do.
0:27:01 > 0:27:06Yeah. I don't know, to me that looks as good as owt Michelangelo ever did.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10On them leaves when they're finished, you know,
0:27:10 > 0:27:13it's like, I'm getting a better idea now.
0:27:13 > 0:27:18We're looking at how you form that and then this one's partially done.
0:27:18 > 0:27:24Then the pencil marks on just that radius where, you know, the obvious next thing is to...
0:27:24 > 0:27:28You've already done the groove there, haven't you?
0:27:28 > 0:27:31..is to make that nice raised bit.
0:27:31 > 0:27:34To get the right depth in.
0:27:35 > 0:27:42What grabs me is how do you get all these bits all exactly the same which you have done very well?
0:27:42 > 0:27:47Well, from the cast we actually take a slab of clay actually onto the building and take an impression of
0:27:47 > 0:27:51the old stonework, bring it down here and make a plastercast.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Then with callipers you can transfer the measurements onto the stone.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58Yeah, cross the width from sort of one extremity to the other of that,
0:27:58 > 0:28:02you do with a pair of callipers, then you know exactly where you're going.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06Yeah. The space is all important as well.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08This is the top, of course, isn't it?
0:28:08 > 0:28:12And that's the bottom and that's the curve of the arch that it fits in.
0:28:12 > 0:28:16- That will go on the left hand side of the arch.- Yeah, yeah.
0:28:16 > 0:28:23Yeah, when people wander about out there they don't realise that just one stone took so long. No wonder
0:28:23 > 0:28:26it took them 250 years.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28- It's very labour intensive.- Yeah.
0:28:28 > 0:28:32Yeah, men must have started and died without doing owt else.
0:28:32 > 0:28:36Yeah, I don't want to depress you like but keep going anyway.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd 2006 E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk