“Hiya, Al, it’s Robbo, the demo man. Is that Alan the Dandelion Stone man?”
 
Screeched the voice of a Rossendale native who clearly smoked 70 untipped cigs a day, and over the last few years had sold my firm some choice pieces of antique, stone garden ornaments and particularly old York stone curiosities.
 
Robbo, was a recently retired demolition contractor, who evidently, had a well-hidden yard amidst the hills and vales of the Rossendale Uplands. For, over the previous couple of years, he had sold my small architectural antiques business Dandelion, several quality pieces of highly ornamented, carved stone, which Robbo had salvaged from old cotton mills, industrial buildings and old cottages, whilst carrying out demolition.
 
A couple of months earlier Robbo had phoned and had brightly informed me, that now he had laid down his sledge-hammers, picks, shovels and sold off his excavator and old 30 tonne Foden tipper wagon, he now planned to sell off all of the reclaimed, carved stone blocks, decorative York stone lintels, stone gargoyles and old date stones, together with a host of other old carved stone, tucked away in his Yard for his retirement fund.
 
“Al, about twenty years back, our firm knocked down a reet bonny sort of public building in either Accy (Accrington), Blackburn or Rochdale. I cannot remember exactly wheer ‘cos thowd grey matter ain’t too bonny”.
 
Robbo rattled on, informing me that he wanted to sell me a large, beautifully carved arch of grey Yorkshire stone, elaborately carved with ‘Dragon heads and swirls’, which he had carefully removed from the gable end of a Victorian building undergoing demolition.

Despite Robbo being a rather old, gnarled, hard as nails demolition man, he was also as straight as a die and widely respected. Indeed, during the purchase of several interesting decorative antique stone pieces from him, I had recognised his honesty, thus, I too, held him in high regard.
 
With Robbo’s Rossendale doric straining my ear drums, to be sure, I found myself becoming most interested in his ‘Dragon Stones’. Therefore, I requested him to email pictures.
 
“Nae Al, since I packed in with me demo business, I don’t have anyone to begger about with yon emailing job. But no worries Al, I’ll load the Dragon stones onto me Old Ford Cargo wagon, and drive up to your Dandelion Yard this afternoon.” This was most acceptable, so I instructed him to go ahead.
 
About a couple of hours later, I spied Robbo’s much battered old Ford Cargo dropside lorry trundling down the long, limestone metalled yard that we share with our neighbour, McEwen Boiler Makers. With a loud hiss of air, the lorry’s brakes were applied. The cab door swung open and my demo chum Robbo’s friendly greeting echoed around the Yard.
 
“Awreet Al, th’ Dragon Stones are on the back of the wagon. I’ll drop the side board so you’ll see ‘em and, they’re reet bonny antiques.”
 
Smiling, I waved a greeting to Robbo, and then quickly launched myself up on to the lorry’s flat bed. Robbo had neatly laid out the large and heavy, grey coloured York stones, to form a large arch. I noticed the ‘Dragons’ were beautifully carved together with long, flowing scrolls. However, the keystone was unfortunately missing.
 
Robbo, upon noticing my bemusement regarding the missing keystone, hailed me. “Aye, the ruddy keystone was badly damaged during us pulling down the building. Sorry Al.”.

An hour later, after quaffing two large mugs of quality Yorkshire tea, Robbo and myself had struck a mutually satisfactory deal. I then unloaded two pallets of Dragon stones with our fork lift truck.
 
“Reet Al, thanks for the business and for the brass. Now I’ll fire up thowd wagon, and head back over to bonny Lancashire”, And, in a voluminous cloud of blue diesel clag, and with a friendly wave of his hand, Robbo drove the Ford Cargo out of the Dandelion Yard.

The Dragon stone pallets were then placed in a corner of the Yard, where they remained gathering dust until, April 2019. This is when I decided to carefully set out the arch stones onto plywood sheets, thereby evaluating the dimensions of the arch, and the size of the much needed keystone.

This work was quickly achieved and resulting from studying a couple of books on carved stone heads, I produced a sketch depicting a truly horrific stone head, which I emailed to my friend Steve, one of Yorkshire’s most creative and highly talented stone carvers, based down in Sheffield. Consequently, Steve hand carved the stone head from a block of York stone, and quickly delivered it to the Dandelion Yard.
 
Taking advantage of a 4 inch thick slab of grey York stone in stock, I soon had the large keystone cut to size. I then pinned and fastened Steve’s stone head, using a special masonry epoxy resin on to the keystone.I then turned my attention to building from old salvaged timber, a strong D-shaped arch support structure. This was set up in front of a timber screen securely screwed to the front of the Dandelion Yard wall. The D-shaped arch support was set into place and bolted thro’ the timber screen onto the solid Yorkshire stone Yard wall. The result was extremely robust.
 
I then commenced the building up of the Dragon arch stones, using a weak mortar. The fork lift truck greatly assisted with the lifting of the heavy Dragon stones. Thus, both sides of the arch were soon assembled. I rock bolted a steel lifting ring onto the arched topped, keystone. I trowelled down mortar on to the interfaces of the arch stones, and after lifting the keystone with the fork lift truck, carefully lowered it into position. I allowed a couple of days for the mortar to set. Thus, after a thorough wire brushing of dried excess mortar, the Dragon arch looked totally resplendent.
 
Methinks, it will make a good fire place, or a garden water feature, or, to form an enigmatic part of a stone garden ‘Folly’.
 
Contact Alan at Dandelion Stone Troughs for details and price.