Mason's aims

He worked as an apprentice with another Oxford stonemasons for three-and-a-half years before taking a job with the London firm of Stonewest.

Now, sitting in the quiet solitude of the managing director's office at the company's Long Handborough headquarters, he is the one signing up apprentices.

He said: "Just as happened with me, they come on work experience first to see whether we get on with them - and, equally importantly, whether they get on with us."

During that trial period Joslin also finds out whether a candidate has any natural aptitude for the work.

The firm employs 35 people and has what Mr McLean describes as a steady' annual turnover of about £1.8m.

But this year and next, revenues will be boosted by the largest job in the firm's history - a £1m plus contract to renovate the stonework of Exeter College Chapel, Oxford.

Designed by George Gilbert Scott, the building celebrate its 150th anniversary next year - in the same year the college itself celebrates its 700th.

Mr McLean said: "We have had some large and prestigious contracts in the past, including a project at Waddesdon, where we did £800,000-worth of work, and then there was Windsor Castle, where the work we did earned us the Royal warrant. But this is the biggest ever in terms of value."

Some of the masonry at the college chapel was actually becoming dangerous. Now Joslin is carrying out the work in three stages. The first is finished and second under way.

Mr McLean explained the college had needed to find a company capable of producing intricate carving by hand, just as masons produced it 700 years ago, and again 150 years ago, but which could also use the most up-to-date computer aided design (CAD) equipment.

J Joslin fitted the bill - winning the contract on competitive tender.

But how did a company that started life in the 1890s producing memorial stones on a site between two graveyards in the London suburb of Finchley, come to be in Long Handborough?

Henry Dollamore, former technical director, now retired, explained: "In the early 1970s, a firm of shopfitters, Olney Brothers, bought up the Oxford builders Benfield and Loxley, and at about the same time, they also bought up J Joslin - though the Finchley premises were sold off for building.

"Then it was decided that the stonemasons' division of Benfield and Loxley should be called Joslin. A little later a London bookmaker bought up J Joslin as an investment and it has functioned as an independent company ever since."

Companies like Joslin, particularly when carrying out contracts such as Exeter College, help ensure traditional skills are preserved for the future. The firm's six apprentices are on block-release from Bath College, two from each year of the three-year course.

Mr McLean said: "A few years ago it was hard to get youngsters interested in these old trades. But now it seems to be swinging back and more want to come into the business."

And how about CAD? Was its introduction seen as a threat to traditional stone carving jobs?

Mr McLean admitted that it had been seen as such by some, but he added: "I think we all accept it as just another resource, a useful tool, and there are some jobs where there is no substitute for old fashioned carving.

"There was a window to be fitted to a curved wall and however much the computer expert tried to work it all out, it always came out wrong - in the end we just did it all by hand!"

But masons now accept that CAD is a boon for doing routine jobs that once were very time-consuming.

And what about stone? Is that now hard to come by? After all, it is well known the local quarries of Taynton, Milton-under-Wychwood, or Headington, sources of original material for many of Oxford's buildings over the centuries, are now exhausted.

Mr McLean did not seem unduly worried, pointing out that the original stone for Exeter College Chapel probably came from Bath and that the new stone, Hartham Park Bath stone from Corsham in Wiltshire, was a pretty good match.

But, sitting in his office away from the hands-on work of carving for which he was trained, is he not a little envious of the fixers' (on-site carvers) and bankers' (those in the yard who still create beautiful stonework for the rest of us to admire?

He said that when he saw the 15 ornately carved gables, complete with gargoyles, he did feel a twinge of envy.

But he added that he still enjoyed stone carving in his spare time and seems to be one of those lucky people who discovered what they enjoy doing and have persuaded someone to pay them to do it.