A new company has been set up to saw and sell Shaftsbury Greenstone, the sandstone that can be seen in the ancient buildings of Shaftsbury, including the Saxon abbey started in 880 and now available again for the first time in decades.

The new company is called Melbury Greenstone Ltd and has been established by farmer David Fear. He has invested £150,000 in three saws, with 1.2m to 1.7m blades, a cropper and handling equipment.

Two experienced banker masons are working with him to produce the masonry required. They were formerly with Somerset Stonemasons. There are also four people working the machinery - two experienced and two trainees.

As well as being used in Shaftsbury itself, the historic Greenstone has also been carried down the River Stour as far as Wimborne and to Sturminster Newton, where the church is built of it.

It has also been used in conjunction with other materials, such as flint at Ashmore and Purbeck limestone further south.

David Fear says the idea for setting up the company came when a neighbouring farmer reopened an old Greenstone quarry on his land, from which the stone now being processed by Melbury Greenstone comes.

The stone sits under 2.5-3m of overburden and the quarry was reopened to supply stone for a new mansion being built on a nearby estate.

Melbury say demand for the stone has been good. The bulk of what they have supplied has been cut and dressed stone for building, but they say they can supply carvings of all kinds, fireplaces, windows, chimneys, or any other building product that can be made in the stone.

Encouraged by their initial success, they are also now intending to work other stones, including the limestones of Bath and Portland, which are not far away.

"I would say we should be able to comfortably produce 1,000 tonnes a year," says Fear. "We are supplying stone for several large houses at the moment.""