In 2009 I was responsible for restoring a 14th Century doorway on a small church in the Brie region of Seine-et-Marne, famous for its cheese.

Because minimal intervention to the historic stonework was of utmost importance, the architect chose to restore the carved tympanum with sacrificial mortar repairs, rather than piecing-in new stonework.

Here you can see how a sympathetic mortar mix has been applied to the missing areas at the bottom and allowed to cure. Once this had completely gone off, I returned to site and carved the missing detail into the mortar, which was then coloured with natural pigments in limewash to reflect the patina of the original.