Prior to the Elizabethan period masons had been employed in building cathedrals, abbeys, churches and castles. Large projects like Burghley House, however, were expensive and rare, and employed a large number of stonemasons. These would be organised into hierarchical teams under the direction of a Master Mason or Master Builder.

There were two types of stonemason:

1. ‘Hewers’, who would roughly shape the stones in the quarry;
2. ‘Layers’ or ‘Setters’, who worked on the building site itself.

Stonemasons would belong to a craft guild that protected and organised them, and insisted on regular church attendance. On each construction site, a small building would have been erected to house tools, and as a meeting place and school for apprentice masons.

Many stonemasons were illiterate and forced to become itinerant workers and travel to find work. Their credentials would have been confirmed with certain signs, tokens and words. They often left their own personal sign on their work.