An obituary from the Daily Telegraph about a skilled stonemason with an unusual history considering where he spent his working life...
George Prescott, who has died aged 91, was a skilled stonemason and worked on
many historic buildings in Oxford.
He arrived in the city in 1960 from Barbados, where he had learned his trade,
working on hotels, schools and government buildings on the island.
He was primarily a walling mason, his role being to dress and lay walling
stone (which in the Oxford and Cotswolds areas is limestone). Traditional
walling — as distinct from dry stone walling (a different skill) — is laid
as random rubble or coursed rubble, some being axed or dressed into shape
with a walling axe, in a lime-based mortar.
As a layer, Prescott’s skill lay in selecting appropriate and varying sized
walling stones for particular positions in the wall so that the end result
blends and is harmonious.
He was involved in building new walling on important modern buildings within
the historic city and University of Oxford as well as the repair and
maintenance of rubble stone walls to buildings dating from the medieval
period. Walling is also found within the building structure, often concealed
behind plasterwork or panelling, and he applied his skills to the alteration
and repair of this too.
Unusually for a walling mason, Prescott was also a skilled plasterer and when
not active on walling would be much in demand carrying out restoration as
well as the conservation of traditional plasterwork.
In addtion to his work on historic buildings in Oxford, Prescott carried out
stone restoration work at nearby Blenheim Palace over many years. He worked
for the Symm group, which throughout its 200-year history has undertaken
specialist building works at most of the colleges of Oxford and many of the
city and University buildings.
George Wellington Prescott was born at St Philip, Barbados, on June 21 1921,
one of seven children whose father died young. Educated locally, he started
work labouring for a firm of Barbadian builders, one that specialised in
stone buildings rather than the more numerous timber ones.
Prescott came to Britain shortly after his marriage in 1960 and settled in
Oxford, where his sister was working as housekeeper to a wealthy couple. He
took a job with Symm and Co, where he was to spend the next 25 years as a
mason in a team of craftsmen builders, specialising in conservation,
restoration, alteration and extension of historic buildings.
As a senior craftsman, much of his best work was carried out at University
colleges including Christ Church, Merton, Worcester and St Hilda’s, as well
as at churches and city council buildings.
After retiring in 1985 he continued to keep his hand in as a builder. In his
eighties he built an extension to the family home in Oxford and played a
prominent part in the renovation of the Elim Pentecostal Church in Botley
Road, where he was baptised late in life.
George Prescott is survived by his wife, Evelyn Drayton, and by their son and
three daughters.
George Prescott, born June 21 1921, died March 8 2013
