Discovery

Today in the Section A Maintenance Project we had one of those experiences which makes the job feel worthwhile.  We were lifting over a broken monument in order to be able to repair it.

It had clearly been lying, face down, in the ground for ages...   the front had sunk deeply into the soil.  The sandstone appeared to be in good enough condition that the monument should be repairable.  The base, although slumped forward due to (historic) coffin collapse, was definitely functional.

The safest way of turning the large stele (gravestone) over is to dig around the edges (being extremely careful to avoid touching the monument with the shovel) and then simply lift it up sideways by hand and lower it onto wood.  Modern machinery, for all it's conveniences, exposes the stone to much greater risk of damage:  chipping to the edges and even catastrophic fracturing in the centre if the load puts tensional instead of compressional stress onto the weathered (and thus weakened) sandstone.

The tough part is, however, that initial moment when the stone is lifted:  will it be intact?  Is there horrible damage on the surface?  There is a kind of dread that I have when I do this:  as I have seen, in Canada, stones whose faces have been destroyed by frost, salt, and/or ant damage.

Today, though, we found, instead, a wonderfully intact wonderfully-carved stone.  It probably has not been in the ground quite as long as I had thought...   say 20 or 30 years...  and is eminently repairable.  We will soon have it safely reinstalled:  the gravestone will once again mark its grave, the inscription will be accessible, this tiny portion of Rookwood will be reinstated, maintained, preserved to be handed on to the future....

On cleaning out the base, which we completed as we were attempting to desalinate the stele (at least for the most soluble of salts), we discovered why the monument had fallen:  the original mason did not use enough cementitious material (apparently an early form of cement or a strong natural hydraulic lime) in the groove:  the mortar never contacted the tongue...  the stone was never properly set or held in place.