Swales In The Dales Stone Carving

Welcome doorsteps!

The making of the garden love quote plaque I hand carved for my wife.

Hello everyone
I'm re-posting this again for all the people who have liked my page since I last posted this.
Some of you know me but some of you don't, so I wanted to introduce myself again.
... So here we go
My name is Chris Swales and I own Swales in the Dales. I'm a stonemason from Skipton, North Yorkshire (the gateway to the Dales). I suffer badly with fibromyalgia which is chronic pain so most days I'm in quite a bit of pain, but I'm not going to let it stop me carving. I am married to Becky who helps with paper work and advertising, we have two children Ruby who's 8 and James who's 5. Both like having a go at carving and love to mess up the workshop.
I'm a registered Monumental Mason, so I specialise in hand carved bespoke headstones and cremation tablets. I also do grave restoration, house names/numbers, garden features and masonry repair work.
We are only a small business and due to the expensive cost of advertising we do most of it on here. Most importantly we need the help from people that like our page and word of mouth so please keep sharing our work and posts to all your family and friends.
Any questions or advice you may have please don't hesitate to ask me. I hope to work with you one day to get your own piece of Swales in the Dales stone carving!
Chris, Becky, Ruby and James
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Today I've been refurbishing these plaques from Malham Chapel.

So please to be involved in this memorial, the grindstone was supplied by Dandelion Stone Troughs & Architectural Antiques

Here's the stone head water feature when I was testing it.

Here are just some of the carvings I have done for Dandelion Stone Troughs & Architectural Antiques over the years. Me and my good friend Alan work really well together and produce high quality products from millstones, water features, memorial stones and much more.

Hand carved head water feature I did for someone, its nicely weathered in. What do you think Natural Stone Carved Creations

A house plaque I did a while ago now fitted.

A nice little house number hand carved (please excuse the stick).

Today I hand carved this house name above this door.

Stuck for something to do today? Why not head down to the farmers market at the canal basin in Skipton.

Today's job in Eastby, Nr Skipton was to take out these old crumbling mullions and replace with new mullions and windows.

Here's a scary pumpkin my daughter carved when she was 6!

A plaque done for a customers bar.

We love our house sign beautifully carved by Chris and have had lots of compliments on it.It was a pleasure communicating with Chris and lovely to meet and chat with him for the fitting.

Totally professional service, customer service faultless, attention to detail impeccable and delivered as promised. Would highly recommend to anyone. Thank you.

Superb service in restoring the wording on a headstone at Beamsley Chapel .. highly recommend

Our stone hearts are fab. We love them. Thankyou chris

Mega talented stone mason! Nice guy and a great friend. Would recommend Swales in the dales to anyone �

I requested a carve of two intertwined hearts for my partner as a surprise & we were both absolutely delighted with the piece. We met Chris to collect the piece & he was a really nice genuine guy. All the best, Phil & Emma

Great talented guy. I have attended one of his stone carving courses, had a fantastic day. Chris was so patient and knowledgable. I have since bought a number of stone items from him and I am so pleased with my bespoke purchases. I was so impressed with him, I put his name forward to give a talk at the WI at which I am a member. The talk/demonstration went really well and was well received and enjoyed by all who attended. I can highly recommend Chris.

Great service throughout from Chris, I described what I had in mind and he sent me designs to choose from and also kept me up to date with step by step photos, he asked me about colours etc., but also gave advise for which colours suited the stone. A fab 60th birthday present for my Dad and it still looks great in the garden. Would definitely recommend, keep up the good work Chris.

Excellent work and always reliable. Wouldn't use anybody else now

Excellent service and excellent carving. Mr Swales handled my order to my exact specifications and kept me informed of his progress and allowed me to make last minute changes.

Chris replaced an old stone mullion in our house. An absolutely great lad and genuinely talented and very professional stonemason. cannot recommend him highly enough. a fantastic job.. thankyou... Tommy and Kirstie.. xx

Chris recently did a little carved stone for us for our pet that we had just lost. He went out of his way to make sure that we got exactly what we wanted, coming to look at where we were wanting to put it after his working hours had finished, he had carved it by the next day and even came and fitted it before we got home as he knew our children were upset and realised that having the stone in place would help them start to come to terms with it a bit! Fantastic service by a hard working, very professional family man. Can't recommend highly enough!

Chris has done me a couple of pieces and the workmanship is second to none . Absolutely made up with the work many thanks

Chris did an excellent job cleaning up and repainting my daughters headstone. Very reliable and would definitely recommend.

Chris did a fantastic job for a last minute birthday gift. I explained what I wanted and he put the design together promptly. The craftsman ship of the work was amazing and the receiver of the gift was thrilled with it. Would definitely recommend, very professional and a 5 star product. Thank you!

Can't recommend Swales in the Dales enough. I asked for a house sign for our new home & Chris created something better than we could of imagined. professional service & friendliness guaranteed highly recommended.