{"id":477496,"date":"2026-03-15T20:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T20:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/477496\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T20:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T20:44:12","slug":"meet-the-pastry-chef-turned-stone-mason-transforming-walls-into-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/477496\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the pastry chef turned stone mason transforming walls into art"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Blair Woodland has long turned the ordinary into the extraordinary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The dad-of-one from Cornwall quit his job as a pastry chef to become a stone mason ten years ago, swapping bags of sugar for stone walls and <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cornwalllive.com\/news\/cornish-hedges-ancient-craft-cornwall-10563809\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_self\">Cornish hedges across his home county<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">More recently though, his goal has turned to taking his craft even further, transforming his stonework into art.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201cI&#8217;ve always thought there&#8217;s so much more that can be done with stone,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"His latest work is a huge stone sphere with a granite base and top and pizza-shaped slate in between \" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0_Copy-of-BZ_DC_MASON05.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"His latest work is a huge stone sphere with a granite base and top and pizza-shaped slate in between \" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">His latest work is a huge stone sphere with a granite base and top and pizza-shaped slate in between (Image: Blair Woodland)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201cI like building walls and I&#8217;m happy building walls, but I just feel there&#8217;s so much more you can do with it. It&#8217;s such an amazing material. It\u2019s so unique and it&#8217;s everywhere as well. The possibilities are endless really, within the laws of physics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">He added: \u201cI like to keep it, as much as I can, how people in the past would have done it. I don&#8217;t really like using power tools &#8211; every now and then you have to &#8211; but I like just using hammers and chisels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201cIt might take a bit longer but I like knowing that a lot of effort and love has gone into it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Blair\u2019s latest work of art is a giant globe-shaped boulder, carefully handcrafted entirely from slate and granite.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The dad-of-one hopes to create more artistic pieces in the future \" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0_Copy-of-BZ_DC_MASON07.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"The dad-of-one hopes to create more artistic pieces in the future \" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">The dad-of-one hopes to create more artistic pieces in the future (Image: Blair Woodland)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The piece, which took 290 hours to create in total and currently sits in Boscastle, is made up of \u2018pizza shaped\u2019 pieces of slate and is held up entirely by itself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201c It\u2019s very dry stone so there&#8217;s no cement or anything in there to hold it together,\u201d Blair explained.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201cIt&#8217;s held together purely on the way it&#8217;s built &#8211; and gravity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201c I have done some cool stuff in the past, but this is definitely the most unique arty sort of piece.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Asked what went into the piece, he added: \u201cThere was a lot of work that went into it because to form the curves of the circle, each shape, like a pizza, if you can imagine, had to be dressed into sort of a wedge shape to work around the shape of the curves.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201cSo there was a lot of time just using hammers and hand tools to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">The human element is something Blair, from St Teath, is aware could fade over time.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The stonemason creates a range of walls and Cornish hedges \" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0_Copy-of-BZ_DC_MASON02.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"The stonemason creates a range of walls and Cornish hedges \" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">The stonemason creates a range of walls and Cornish hedges (Image: Blair Woodland)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">And it&#8217;s something that was all too well highlighted during the recent <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cornwalllive.com\/all-about\/a30\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"\">A30<\/a> mishap, which resulted in <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cornwalllive.com\/news\/cornwall-news\/gallery\/cornish-hedges-near-a30-collapsed-7849371\" rel=\"follow nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_self\">kilometres of incorrectly built Cornish hedging collapsing.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201cIt was being done by people who weren\u2019t really trained to do it,\u201d Bair said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">\u201cWe get the same on all the housing estates that get put up now. It\u2019s all about the money and how quickly it can be done &#8211; the end result doesn&#8217;t generally seem to be taken into account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">He added: \u201cGreat Britain is built on stone, all our greatest buildings and churches, they&#8217;re all made out of stone. It would be such a shame if it just slowly died out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">You can visit <a aria-label=\"\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.woodlandstonework.co.uk\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"\">Blair\u2019s website, here <\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"When it comes to stone, he says the possibilities are 'endless' - within the laws of physics \" loading=\"lazy\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0_Copy-of-BZ_DC_MASON01.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p aria-label=\"When it comes to stone, he says the possibilities are 'endless' - within the laws of physics \" class=\"ImageCaption_caption-title__ccyQU\" data-testid=\"caption-title\">When it comes to stone, he says the possibilities are &#8216;endless&#8217; &#8211; within the laws of physics (Image: Blair Woodland)<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_paragraph-text__PVKlh \" data-tmdatatrack=\"content-unit\" data-tmdatatrack-type=\"paragraph\">Want the latest Cornwall breaking news and top stories first? <a aria-label=\"Click here to join CornwallLive on WhatsAppLink opens in a new tab.\" class=\"TextLink_text-link__dBSS0 TextLink_enabled__dJF3l\" href=\"https:\/\/chat.whatsapp.com\/EiJXIPEsVQc8d05VwyUSPo\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" tabindex=\"0\" target=\"_blank\">Click here to join CornwallLive on WhatsApp<\/a> and we&#8217;ll send breaking news and top stories directly to your phone. 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The dad-of-one from Cornwall quit his job as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477497,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[58587,6225,6485,6486,1120,96,2207,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-477496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-a30","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-people","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477496\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}