How a Letter Gets into Stone
Every house sign, plaque and headstone that leaves the cart shed goes through the same eight steps, in the same order, whether it's three numerals for a gate pier or a ledger over a family grave. None of them gets skipped. The fourth takes longest, because it's the one I care about most.
Here they are as I'd tell you across the bench, with how long each one takes. For what it all costs, see Work & prices.
- Quote
- Within 5 working days
- Redraws included
- One, then €40 each
- Deposit
- 30% on approval
- Fixing radius
- 80 km of Kilkenny
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The Conversation
It starts with a note from you, and it needn't be a long one. I need three things before I can quote:
- The wording, exactly as you want it to read, with any Irish spelled as you'd like it.
- A rough size, even if it's only "about the width of the letterbox".
- A photo of where the stone will go, taken square-on in daylight, with a brick or a wellington boot in the frame for scale.
From those I can tell you which stone suits the spot, how big the letters can be and what it will cost. The quote comes back within 5 working days of having all three.
Most house signs don't need a visit. Memorials, plaques for old buildings and walls I can't read from a photo usually do, and I'll say so in the quote. Visits are arranged by email.
hello@ledgervo.com -
Choosing the Stone
I cut three stones, and I cut them all the same way, with the same chisels. They take a letter very differently, and they age differently on a wall that never sees the sun.
Stone How it takes a letter On a north wall Best for Blue-grey slate Crisp to a hairline. Holds the finest serif I can cut. Sheds water and barely changes in a lifetime. Numbers, small signs, plaques Kilkenny limestone Warm and a touch softer at the edge. Takes gold beautifully. Grows a faint green bloom. A soft brush clears it. Headstones, ledgers, larger signs Irish sandstone Granular and soft. Wants big, plain, open letters. Weathers fastest. Fine detail rounds off over decades. Large lettering, gate and garden stones On a north-facing wall I'll nearly always steer you towards slate. Limestone is the local stone and the one I love most for memorials, because it sits in an Irish graveyard as if it grew there. Sandstone is for when you want a name readable from the far side of a field.
- Signs
- 25 mm thick
- Headstones
- 75 mm thick
- Ledger stones
- 1800 x 750 mm
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The Words
I'll read your wording more carefully than anyone has since you wrote it. Not to change what you want to say, but to see how it will sit in stone, where every letter costs a few minutes of chisel work and a few millimetres of space.
Line breaks matter more than people expect. "The Old School" breaks calmly over two lines. Break it after "Old" and the stone looks like an accident. I'll send two or three ways of setting it and tell you which I'd choose.
Irish and English can share a stone, and often should. I usually give the Irish the first line and the larger size, with the English smaller beneath, so the two read as one name rather than a translation. If I'm not certain of the Irish, I check it with a fluent speaker before a letter is drawn.
The plainest advice I give: fewer words cut deeper. On a 450 x 150 mm slate, 14 letters can stand 50 mm tall and go 4 mm into the stone. Put 30 letters in the same space and they shrink to half the height and half the depth, and the shadow that makes them readable from the gate goes with them.
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Drawing the Letters
This is where a quote becomes a stone. I draw every job out in full, by hand, on paper cut to the exact size of the slab. Nothing is drawn from a stock sheet, because no two jobs have the same words, and the same words never sit the same way on two different stones.
A house sign takes about a week at the drawing board, a memorial two or more. It happens on the days between cutting, with the stove lit, a box of soft pencils and a kneaded rubber that has outlived three dogs.
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The Alphabet Chosen for the Job
I keep about a dozen alphabets that I've drawn and redrawn over the years: a classical Roman capital for memorials, a narrower one for long names on short stones, a plain open capital for sandstone, where fine serifs would only crumble. Each job gets the one that fits its words and its stone, and then that alphabet is adjusted to them. A house called Mill and a house called Ard na Gréine cannot wear the same letters.
Weight is settled here too. Slate will hold a hairline. Sandstone wants a stem twice as thick, or the frost will have the thin strokes off within a generation.
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Spacing by Area, Not Distance
Put the same gap between every pair of letters and the word falls apart. An O beside an O looks far away. An I beside an I looks crowded. What the eye actually reads is the area of the space between two letters: the whole pale shape, including the open part of a curve and the air under an arm.
So I space until every one of those shapes holds roughly the same amount of ground. On the drawing I shade them in pencil and squint, which is the most technical thing I do all week. Then I turn the sheet upside down. Once you can't read the words, you can see the rhythm, and an uneven one shows straight away.
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Awkward Pairs: LA, AV, RT
Some letters never sit easily together. An L followed by an A leaves a hole like a missing tooth. A beside V leans two diagonals together with a cave beneath them. R then T leaves a gap under the arm of the T. No rule fixes them. Each pair is drawn in by eye: tucked closer, the leg of the R shortened a touch, the arm of the T trimmed back, until the word reads at one even pace.
Every name has two or three of them. WALTER has two before you're halfway through it.
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Cutting the Síneadh Fada
Irish vowels carry the fada, the long mark over á, é, í, ó and ú, and it is part of the spelling, not ornament. Leave it off Seán and you've cut the word for old. On a lowercase í it takes the place of the dot, which surprises people who've written both for years.
On a capital the fada has to fit inside the space below the line above, or the line spacing breaks. I draw it as a short, steep stroke rising to the right, about a fifth of the cap height, and cut it as a tapered V that's deepest at its top end, so it catches the light the same way the stems do.
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Numerals and Dates
The Romans never drew numerals to go with their capitals, so my figures are always partly my own. On a house number they stand the full height of the capitals, because the number is the whole point. In the date line of a headstone they sit a touch shorter, so 1931-2024 reads as one quiet phrase instead of shouting over the name. The 1 gets a small foot so nobody mistakes it for an I from the road.
Three numerals on a 200 x 200 mm slate is the smallest job I take, at €160, and I spend as long drawing those three as some people would spend on a whole name.
This is the part I'd do for nothing.
Orla -
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Full-Size Approval
Before a chisel goes near the stone, you see the drawing at exactly the size it will be. If you're close by, I'll bring it out and tape it to the wall or pier where the stone will hang, and we'll stand back at the gate together. If you're further off, it comes rolled in a tube and you tape it up yourself. Look at it from the road, from the doorstep, in the morning and in the evening.
One full redraw is included, because the first time people see their own name at 50 mm tall they often want it smaller, or bigger, or on one line instead of two. Further redraws are €40 each. Once you approve the drawing, a 30% deposit books the stone and your place at the bench, by bank transfer or cash. The balance is due on collection, delivery or fixing.
- Redraws included
- One full redraw
- Each further redraw
- €40
- Deposit on approval
- 30%
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Setting Out and Cutting
The approved drawing is laid on the dressed stone and the letters are traced through, then gone over in pencil wherever the line has blurred. Baseline, cap line and margin are scribed in lightly, and the slab goes up on the banker at a slant, so the light comes across the face from one side and every cut throws a shadow I can read.
Every letter is cut as a V: two walls worked down to meet in a sharp line, about 60° apart. I use tungsten-tipped chisels, from a narrow one for hairlines to a broad one for stems, and a round wooden dummy mallet that's lighter than you'd think. The chisel goes down the centre line first, then each wall is pared to it a little at a time, keeping the arrises, the sharp edges where each wall meets the face, clean.
A 50 mm capital in slate takes about 45 minutes. A 14-letter name is most of two days, with tea. Limestone is a little quicker. Sandstone is quicker again but less forgiving: one careless blow and the edge goes.
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Finishing
Some stones are best left alone. Limestone with its letters held in their own shadow can be the loveliest thing in a graveyard, and sandstone is nearly always left as it is. Slate is a different story: unpainted, a cut letter reads pale grey on dark grey, which is handsome close up and close to invisible from the road.
So there are three finishes. Plain, with the stone doing the work. Painted, in an exterior enamel I mix and test against an offcut of your own stone, so the colour sits down in the cut rather than on top of it. Or gilded, in 23.5 carat gold leaf laid onto oil size, for €4 a letter. Gold doesn't chalk or fade the way paint does, though both want renewing every 15-25 years.
Paint needs a day to dry and a week to cure before the stone is handled for fixing. The size has to reach exactly the right tack, usually overnight, and leaf can't be laid in a draught, so gilding days are the quietest days in the shed.
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Fixing
House signs and plaques go up on hidden stainless pins set in resin. I drill the back of the stone and the wall to matching depths, so the sign sits tight to the wall with nothing showing on its face, and it won't come down without a fight. If you'd rather fix it yourself, it goes by courier with a paper template for the holes: €35 anywhere in Ireland, €55 to Northern Ireland and Britain.
Headstones stand on a foundation set in the cemetery, levelled and left to cure before the stone is lowered on and pinned. A headstone is never fixed sooner than 6 months after a burial, so the ground has time to settle, and making one takes 4-6 months, so the two waits usually end together. I handle the cemetery paperwork. The family supplies the grave owner's written consent.
I fix within 80 km of Kilkenny, which takes in Carlow, Laois, Tipperary, Waterford and most of Wexford. Beyond that, travel is €0.60 per km. On the day I arrive in the morning, work quietly, take every scrap away with me and leave the stone washed. Families are welcome to come and watch, and just as welcome not to.
Memorials: timing, permissions and care
How Long Each Kind of Job Takes
The clock starts when you approve the full-size drawing in step 5, not when you first write. No memorial is ever promised in under 8 weeks.
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House signs and numbers
5-7 weeks
From a €160 house number in slate to a €540 limestone sign.
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Plaques
6-8 weeks
Slate plaques €620 to €850, depending on layout and border.
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Headstones and ledgers
4-6 months
About 30 memorials a year, so autumn bookings often run into the spring.
Send the wording, a rough size and a photo. The quote follows within 5 working days.
Tuesday to Friday, 09:30-17:00
Saturday 10:00-13:00 by appointment. Closed Sunday and Monday.
Kilkenny, Ireland
Fixing within 80 km. Courier anywhere in Ireland and Britain.
Closed 20 December to 12 January
New alphabets get drawn by the stove. Read Orla's winter note.