Location
The Cotswolds
Stone
Cotswold and other limestones, to suit the building
Scope
House signs and door numbers cut to order; built in or surface-fixed

Cut to order

This one is not a single job but something Jackson's offer as standard: house names and numbers, cut by hand in stone, to whatever specification you want.

Lettering is where masonry stops being purely structural. A carved name has to be drawn out full size before a chisel touches it — letter spacing on stone is judged by eye, not measured, because optically even spacing and mathematically even spacing are not the same thing.

Hand-carved stone house sign reading Jackson's, the V-cut lettering painted black, standing on a lane above open Cotswold farmland
V-cut lettering, painted in — the cut does the work, the paint just makes it read from the road.

Painted or left plain

Cut lettering can be left as bare stone, where it reads by shadow alone and changes through the day, or painted so it carries at a distance. Both are shown here: the same sign before painting, and a door number left plain against ashlar.

The carved stone sign unpainted against a dry stone wall, its lettering reading by shadow, with a cocker spaniel sitting alongside
Unpainted, reading by shadow. Site supervisor in attendance.
Square stone number plaque with a carved figure one, fixed to a coursed ashlar wall
A number plaque fixed to existing ashlar.

Round, square, built in or fixed on

Numbers are cut on discs or squares, in stone chosen to sit against the building rather than fight it. They can be built into a wall as it is laid — as with the name plaque on our eight-foot walling job — or fixed to a wall that is already standing.

Round stone door number disc with a carved and painted figure one, on the bench in the workshop
A round number on the bench, painted and ready to go out.

Ordering one

Any size, any stone, any lettering style. Tell us what the building is and what it needs to say, and we will quote it — see house signs and numbers or ask for a quote.