One of the world’s most pre-eminent stonemasons, Simon Warrack, as takes us through the stories behind some of the greatest buildings and monuments that he has helped to conserve for generations to come – from the Trevi Fountain to Angkor Wat and Canterbury Cathedral.

Across the world and across time, the buildings of the gods and of royalty have tended to be made of stone, towering over the homes of us lesser beings who have had to make do with wood or brick. When civilisations create beauty that they wish to last, it is to stone they turn, crossing oceans in search of varying hues and textures, hauling hundreds of tons across thousands of kilometres.

Stonemason and conservator Simon Warrack has worked in more than thirty different countries and with all the major religions, and despite this immense cultural diversity, has found a communality through stone – a desire to conserve and maintain it that has spanned continents, cultures and millennia. In this book, Simon explores ten different places where he has learnt and plied his trade, preserving culturally and historically significant monuments for generations to come. This is the story of the beauty of stone.