Choosing the stone for the new Eleanor Cross for Lincoln project at the CDS quarry in Metheringham Heath.
Last week we covered the launch event for the new Eleanor Cross project for Lincoln. It’s been quite a wait to get the right piece of rock to start carving the statue. The quarry is only digging out new rock on a few days a month and often the pieces that come out are not of a suitable size or shape.
Moreover whilst the giant digging equipment that is occasionally brought can handle them the larger “lumps” are difficult to move using the quarry’s onsite kit and have to be carefully drilled to facilitate cutting into manageable sizes.
This first candidate on the right had already been moved into the main quarry working area. It might do the job as one of the halves. Alan and quarry manager Sean are seen discussing dimensions. For practical reasons the Eleanor Cross statue will be carved in two halves and cemented together. Otherwise the stone would be too heavy to cart to site for carving.
The next photo shows the cutting equipment used to saw the rock into manageable pieces and to work some finished product for the building industry. It wasn’t safe to get too close without the appropriate protective gear.
You can also check out the sound effects from the cutting equipment in this 8 second Youtube vid.
We soon found the right stone. There were to. One was 13.5 tonnes and the other 11.5. Both were too big for our purposes but could be cut “to order”.
Assessing the stone – where would the head go inside this piece? Where will the wing go?
Debate includes “should it be 3’6” or 4′?
Sign off video by Trefor Davies and Alan Ward.
In the videos we mention that the stone is 180 million years old whereas the Wikipedia page suggests it is a mere 165 million years. I say what’s 15 million years between friends1.
Read the first post regarding this project here.
1civilizations will come and go but we will always be friends 🙂