Elias Thorne | Guild Select

About This Business

Elias Thorne is an Edinburgh-based heritage stone mason with seventeen years of experience in the conservation and restoration of traditional Scottish masonry. Trained at the Edinburgh School of Architecture, Elias has worked on projects ranging from Category A listed Georgian tenements to rural dry-stone dykes. He holds accreditation from Historic Environment Scotland and the Stone Federation Great Britain.

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Restoring Edinburgh's Stone: The Work of Elias Thorne

By the Lumatic Editorial Team · June 1, 2024

Edinburgh is built on stone — Craigleith sandstone, Salisbury Crags basalt, Caithness flags — and Elias Thorne has spent the better part of two decades learning to read and repair it. 'Every building has its own geology,' he explains, standing outside a Georgian terrace in the New Town, trowel in hand. 'Get the wrong stone and the repair will be obvious in twenty years. Get it right and it disappears.' His most recent major project was the consolidation of a Category A listed rubble-built farmhouse in East Lothian, where he sourced matching sandstone from a quarry in Northumberland and employed traditional lime mortar throughout. The result passed Historic Environment Scotland inspection at first submission — a rare achievement.