Last week, Emma Knowles travelled all the way from New South Wales, Australia to (an unusually sunny!) Crooklands to take on her Masters Part B accreditation. This challenging assessment involves building 5 metres of wall, including a feature and Emma chose a right-angled corner.
Not only did she complete it within the timeframe, but she also did so to a very high standard!
Originally from Beverley in East Yorkshire, Emma moved to Australia in 2009. In 2016, after a long career managing mental health services, a wonderful twist of fate led Emma to commence her dry stone journey and gain her Professional Level 2 certification.
After becoming a DSWA Instructor in 2017 and being awarded an International Specialized Skills Institute Fellowship in 2018, with the aim of preserving and developing traditional skills, Emma conducted research to identify which dry stone accreditation system would be the best fit for Australia. The outcome was a recommendation that the internationally recognised DSWA-GB Lantra Craft Certification Scheme be implemented.
Fully understanding what would be required to establish the system in Australia (approval/policy/delivery negotiations, oversight, fully equipped training centre(s), more instructors and more master examiners etc), Emma set out on what has been a nine year mission to help build Australia’s capacity to implement the UK accreditation system with integrity, and from there work towards recognition for the trade and the development of its vast potential, downunder.
In 2019, Emma attained Level 3 certification, established Stone of Arc – a traditional dry stone design, construction and training business, and set about creating a purpose-built training centre in Wellington, NSW. The centre, now incorporating every feature required to complete all levels of the CCS scheme, hosted Australia’s first international stone festival in 2024 and was fully completed in 2025, with the unveiling of the master’s courtyard and local dry stone trail, The Dry Stone Way. During this time Emma also became a founder member of the Women’s International Stone Alliance (WISA), which aims to promote and support women involved or interested in becoming involved in traditional stone trades, all over the world.
With support from master examiners Andy Loudon, Geoff Duggan and many others within DSWA-GB and broader walling community, access to training and accreditation in Australia has increased tenfold and the numbers of accredited wallers and instructors has more than doubled in the last few years.
Having now achieved her master’s certification, Emma hopes to become an experienced examiner, able to further assist progress towards the final piece of the Australian puzzle, the need for more master examiners.
Emma said “There’s still a lot to learn, and much work to do, but with so much interest and demand for dry stone in the great southern land, from hobbyists, professionals, aspiring professionals, and clients, I’d like to think this mind-blowing personal achievement might also inspire and enable many more people to get involved in this most wonderful way to spend your days.
We’re all perhaps guilty of thinking it can’t be that hard to build dry stone, until we try to do it well. I’m often guilty of forgetting the challenging years of dedicated practice and things done for nothing when I smile and say I get paid to go to art class, a mindfulness session, the gym, a stunning location and produce a beautiful legacy, every day, for work. I feel it’s an absolute privilege to be part of the wonderful international community of people with dry stone skills, individually and collectively providing one of the four elements required to create, restore and inspire gorgeous, purposeful dry stone structures – skill, along with stone, friction, and gravity.
I find it a rare honour to live in the modern world but work in the exact same way people have for thousands of years, to reside in a country that hosts the oldest dry stone ingenuity in the world (Brewarrina’s Aboriginal fish traps) and be part of a trade that connects and unites every culture on the planet, like oxygen.
I hope what I’ve managed to achieve, whilst combining a double hemispheric existence, provides dividends for the craft’s continuation and renaissance in Australia, as well as overseas. I look forward to encouraging the ongoing development of our dry stone community, helping to create enough accreditation opportunities to satisfy the rapidly emerging demand for traditionally-built contemporary and classic dry stone constructions, building my own legacies and improving heritage conservation outcomes, long term”.
Huge congratulations from all of us at DSWA-GB to Emma on officially becoming a DSWA Master Craftsman!