HUNTLY Barton is the keeper of a proud masonry tradition, writes ANDREW MOLE

"My old man always wanted to build a stone house. And I was mad enough to help him have a go."

Hardly an auspicious beginning to a singularly demanding craft.

But between skinned knuckles, a strained back and generational disputation, Kyneton's Huntly Barton had accidentally discovered a hidden calling.

"Not that I would have let the old man know at the time, that I was enjoying it," Huntly says.

But from the late 1980s, his new passion would slowly fuse with one of the most august names in colonial Victoria's masonry industry.

Until Huntly officially assumed ownership of Wm Thos Jones and Son, of Piper St, in Kyneton.

It was a story that began in 1859, with Welsh stonemason John Jones landing in newly settled Victoria, in the midst of gold fever.

Where a man of his talents had no trouble getting work on the railway being built to Bendigo, playing a key role on many bridges and viaducts in the area, including the impressive viaduct at Malmsbury.

Launching a business that would take him, and his descendants, to Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne University, and the Law Courts, and to humble stone walls, horse troughs and headstones.

In Malmsbury, John also did the spire on St Johns (not also named for his artistry) and the family's stone home still stands there in Raleigh St.

The fourth generation of Joneses continued the business after World War II until, in 1991, it was sold to Huntly and Kate Barton.

Huntly had been involved with the yard for five years before taking it over, mastering skills that have passed down through centuries, where the hammer and chisel have held sway against time and technology.

"We can do all sorts of work today, particularly in lettering and fine cutting, with some fairly fancy machinery, but for me the magic is still in working hands-on with the stone," Huntly says.

On his epic voyage into history, Major Mitchell passed through what is now Kyneton, but it is unlikely he has left as indelible a mark on Kyneton and surrounds as the Jones and Barton families.

At the town's gateway, coming up from Melbourne, is a commanding abstract stone tree designed and built by Huntly, and sending a  message that here the old skills are alive and well.

"I was mostly self-taught until I started work in the yard here," Huntly says.

"Which is where I got the chance to soak up so much more in our heritage-listed yard.

"The old methods of moving, cutting and preparing stone were, and are, still in active use or in sight, and I strongly believe it's important to keep using these skills and knowledge.

"This business has played an important role in this community for 150 years, providing employment and giving it some of its most celebrated landmarks.

"It's my hope to keep that tradition alive."

Today the yard produces individual pieces of stone art, stunning stone landscaping for gardens and yards, dry walls and monumental masonry.

The Kyneton cenotaph is an example of the work produced from the old-world yard, although not everyone would be as aware of the heights to which the work rose during the formative years of Victoria, when masonry was a must more than an indulgence.

Its work also graces homes as far afield as Sydney and Perth, and Huntly's designs are increasingly sought after.

Above all he loves working with the natural elements of stone, reading into it spectacular designs, which can transform seemingly shapeless granite into valuable pieces of art.

In so many ways so little has changed, not just from the yard's foundation, but from the work done by masons a millennia, or more, ago.

"We still separate blocks with the plug and feathers," Huntly says.

"It is a method clearly on show in ancient Egyptian quarries.

"We drive two thin iron feathers, or spikes, into the stone and force them apart by hammering a wooden plug between them.

"You do it often enough, and close enough, and the stone will split and divide."

Of course, he confesses with a wry grin, for the really big blocks he is not averse to employing the jackhammer.

But once shaped, the blocks are still moved around the yard on a giant jib, not unlike the main masts of a sailing ship, and lowered on to ageing wooden trolleys, which are then pushed along mini train tracks that have been in place for more than a century.

The jobs may not be so big today, and not as many people have the patience required for a work of stone to come to life, but Huntly Barton is the proud inheritor of a noble craft he is determined to guarantee for future generations.

"That, or I simply have rocks in my head," he says.