Skill Up Visits: Creative Carving at the Building Crafts College

Skill Up Visits: Creative Carving at the Building Crafts College

Thursday 2nd April 2026, 10am to 12pm

We associate modern construction with steels beams, concrete blocks and large panes of glass. But turn the clock back a few hundred years, and the materials commonly found on construction sites included stone, timber and brick – worked by masters of crafts, using techniques honed over decades of shared knowledge and experience.

Today, those same skills and crafts are employed in the restoration and upkeep of heritage buildings. Alongside modern construction skills, the Building Crafts College is a place where heritage crafts continue to be taught and learnt.

In this workshop you’ll have the unique opportunity to look around their East London campus, before being introduced to the craft of stonemasonry. Learn the methods of carving using soap, before moving into the stonemasonry workshop where you’ll take a chisel to stone and carve your own decorated block to take away.

Steel toe capped boots are required for the workshop. If you have your own, please bring them. Otherwise, the Building Crafts College will provide a pair (participants can provide their shoe size in the registration form). PPE will also be provided.

This workshop is free, please register. If you can no longer attend, please contact [email protected] or cancel your ticket through Eventbrite to ensure others who want to attend will be able to.

Skill Up Visits

Skill Up Visits invites young people with an interest in architecture and design to explore buildings, institutions and exhibitions, thinking critically and responding creatively to what they see. From learning how to work to an architectural brief, developing drawing skills, exploring different creative outputs and architectural languages, these 16 to18 year-olds work both collaboratively and independently to within workshop activities and briefs. Expanding the understanding of architecture as just bricks and mortar.

The Building Crafts College

The Building Crafts College is the leading provider of construction crafts training in the UK. Focusing on heritage crafts and traditional skills, they teach students of all ages, backgrounds, and skillset to become professional craftspeople and skilled makers.

Accessibility

The Building Crafts College has step-free access, with lots of the amenities located on the ground floor. A lift offers access to a mezzanine floor.

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