Masons’ Marks

We climbed up the Greenberfield Locks, on to the canal summit at Foulridge, through the summit tunnel, and then down the other side to Burnley. Passing through the Foulridge tunnel was a less bumpy experience for us than ‘Tim & Pru’ on Ch 4’s ‘Great Canal Journeys’ !

The stones lining the lock chambers frequently have an obvious mark on them, but what are they for ? Here are some examples ….

 

Well, when this canal (and others) were being built, local men were employed in the quarries and as stonemasons. What we see on the stones are known as ‘masons marks’.
These marks were carved by individual stonemasons and, have the appearance of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

In practice the marks were used to show supervisors which mason was responsible for a particular run of work over a known period.
This arrangement provided an early form of quality control, as well as allowing piecework assessments to be made prior to payment.

Interestingly, only one or two marks seemed to be duplicated, so perhaps there were a lot of stonemasons.