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Wales is full of wonderful historic buildings, many of which have either been refurbished or are in line for renovation.

These buildings, built from stone often require skilled craftsmen to carry out the work to replace crumbling and lost pieces of stone. And just as importantly, the stone has to be matched perfectly, or as near as perfectly, so the building is restored to its former glory.

Corinthian South Wales Ltd is a stone masonry company based in Barry. Although Corinthian has only been trading since October, it has already untertaken some prestigious jobs in an around Wales.

Jobs have included restoration work at Duffryn Gardens, Cardiff Castle, Oystermouth Castle and Gwyn Hall in Neath.

Andrew Griffiths, on of the partners, said: "There are really two sides to the business. We buy in blocks of natural stone, then cut and shape them to what people need. We also do site work which includes the cleaning and resoration of stone buildings. These are usually old buildings because more modern buildings tend not to be built of stone."

Corinthian is currently working on a new University of Glamorgan building in the centre of Cardiff.

Andrew said: "The theatre block is being built from sandstone. This type of job is my perfect job because we buy in the stone, cut it and then work on site to create something for a customer.

"We did a job recently in Bristol restoring an old house and we found an remnant of a ballustrade which needed to be replaced. But looking at the original you could see that it had been created by about eight different masons and each piece wasn't identical. It had been made about 150 years ago and we had to try and replicate the design so we worked with English Heritage who helped us decide how to proceed with the job.

"In Wales we work closely with CADW when we need to. At the moment we are doing work at Swansea Prison restoring and extending the old prison wall. Because it is a listed building CADW are involved. They want us to do the work in the original way but the planning authorities need it done to the minimum modern building requirements. In these situations we all have to try and come up with a compromise," he said.

He explained that often they have to match stone exactly which means buying it from the same quarry. But sometimes quarries have long since disappeared, which can cause problems.

In those situations, they just have to match it as perfectly as they can.

Andrew's partner in the business is Drew Armstrong, who has been a stonemason for about 25 years..

He said: "I love this job because it is different the whole time. You get to work on some great buildings including cathedrals. It is a really skillful job but it is a great skill to have."

"Over the years I've worked on all sorts of buildings but I think the best was the Houses of Parliament."

He is chatting to me as he chips away at what will eventually be the base for one of the columns holding up a balcony at a private home.

People often comment that they don't build them like they used to', especially looking at the intricate stone work on old cathedrals and churches but Drew thinks we could still create wonderful buildings with the skills he and his workmates have.

"We can do anything given the time and the money. We could rebuild the Parthenon with the right budget. It's not that the ability isn't here anymore, it's just that people can't afford to pay for the amount of work and manhours involved any more."

11:09am Wednesday 5th September 2007

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