The Portland Sculpture & Quarry Trust (PSQT) and Greenpeace UK have unveiled a new artwork in Portland limestone called ‘The Ocean Stone’, to highlight the importance of protecting the oceans and raise awareness of the destruction human activities wreak on them.

The Ocean Stone is one of 12 ‘Memory Stones’, an artwork by Hannah Sofaer, a major player in the PSQT. The Memory Stones overlook Tout Quarry on the island of Portland, off the coast of Weymouth in Dorset.

Each of the stones has its own significance, linking the historical culture, crafts and land use in Portland to the future. The Ocean Stone is the first of the 12 to be unveiled.

In September, Greenpeace built an underwater barrier of 18 boulders in the English Channel’s South West Deeps Marine Protected Area (MPA) to protect the seafloor from destructive industrial fishing.

The boulders were of Portland limestone and artists from PSQT carved one of them into an ammonite sculpture, evocative of the ocean’s role in sustaining life for millions of years and of our responsibility to preserve it for future generations.

Stone Cladding Systems (SCS) has entered an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership with Hilti Great Britain to supply Hilti backing structure and bracket design with the SCS Aztec rainscreen system.

The Hilti system, like the Aztec, is fully tested to CWCT requirements. Bringing the two systems together means Aztec can offer a fully designed, warranted and competitive system from stone facing to support brackets.

Jason Kennedy, Director of SCS, says: "With many customers preferring one supply route for Aztec and a trusted backing structure we looked for a quality, reliable supplier with good design and backup.

"The Hilti system also has the option of floor to floor rail support with brackets to suit. All our Aztec testing has been done on the Hilti backing structure, so it made sense to partner with them and offer the complete package."

Customers can now source the Hilti backing system and the Aztec Rainscreen System fully designed and warranted from one source. 

If you are looking for natural stone rainscreen cladding, contact Jason at sales@scs-stone.co.uk / Tel: 01335 361000.

From Georgian, through Regency and into the mid-Victorian era, Coade stone was popular. Not least among it attractions was that it made work by some of the great artists of the day reproducible and, therefore, more affordable. And the fact that the formula for making it was kept a secret until it was unlocked by late 20th century science added to its mystery.

Coade stone takes its name from the family that made this early fired clay example of engineered stone. While no doubt the stone industry of the day took exception to it, it is highly regarded by today’s conservators who are involved in its restoration alongside stonework.

Coade stone was produced as ashlar, especially with finishes such as vermiculation that were expensive to produce in stone, and as key stones with carved figures over doorways. It made such work more widely affordable.

However, to enhance the reputation of the material, the Coade family employed some of the great artists of the day to produce original carvings from which Coade stone reproductions were made. Bacon, Rossi, Smirke and a great many others all carved work specifically for production in Coade stone.

Coade Stone reached a height of popularity when the company producing it was run by Mrs Eleanor Coade, assisted by her daughter of the same name and William Groggan, a distant cousin.

They moved the business from Dorset into Lambeth in London to supply the building boom in the city and Coade Stone quickly became fashionable in the capital. They had an illustrious list of customers, including George III himself.

Eventually the company passed into the sole ownership of William Groggan, who went bankrupt in 1833. His son, Thomas, tried to resurrect the business but the material did not return to its former popularity. The business eventually passed to one of its employees, Mark Blanchard, who was more successful and continued trading until 1870.

The secret of Coade Stone died with Blanchard and was only rediscovered in the 1990s by the British Museum. They said it consisted of ball clay with 5-10% ground flint, 5-10% quartz sand and about 10% soda-lime-silica glass that acted as a vitrifying agent.

The mixture was fired at about 1,000ºC to produce a vitrified material of exceptional durability. In restoration projects it often shows less deterioration due to weathering and pollution than the stone around it, although today’s stone companies would say it lacks stone’s much admired and distinctive patina of age.

This first appeared in Natural Stone Specialist magazine in 2009 – click here to see the original article

The Wembley Park project is a multi-billion-pound redevelopment by Quintain of the 85-acre Wembley Park estate.

Leading landscaping product supplier Marshalls’ engagement started as long ago as 2006, working with the appointed ‘landscape guardian’ and designer Kirk Nelson from LDA Design.

Being involved early on enabled Marshalls to advise on product selection, costs and sourcing for a site-wide design code developed and adopted by Brent Council and Highways. From this, specifications were generated for the liveable streets, residential plots and public squares, gardens, and parks.

Marshalls was appointed as a ‘key supplier’ by Quintain in 2017, actively working with the developer, its designers, delivery contractors, and sub-contractors to fully map and understand each plot of the project in detail.

Dixon Jones worked with Marshalls’ design experts on the product selection during the design phase and wanted to use granite paving flexibly, which is uncommon in the UK. In Olympic Way, the main artery through the development, Marshalls’ Elara granite was sawn but laid unbound. The sides of the sawn granite were sandblasted to improve its adherence to jointing sand. This looks good, performs well and is quick and easy to maintain.

Following a successful trial, Marshalls supplied Tarvos Granite, Tegula Pennant Grey, Conservation X Kerb and Birco 100 Channel Drainage for the entire length of Olympic Way.

At the end of Olympic Way new steps were installed as the main approach to the National Stadium, with elevators for accessibility. Quintain brought together designer Dixon Jones, contractor VolkerFitzpatrick, Belgian precaster Decomo and Marshalls to contribute to the final design, supply, offsite manufacture and installation of the steps. Marshalls’ Callisto silver grey and Prospero mid grey granites were selected for the steps and landing areas.

A number of architects had a hand in the different landscaping pockets of Wembley Park and though each is individualistic, these plots always referred to the Marshalls pallet of paving and were reviewed by the landscape architect guardians, LDA Design, to ensure overall cohesion.

Read more about this project at tinyurl.com/MarshallsWembley.

Kings Square, Gloucester, is part of the wider Kings Quarter regeneration project by Gloucester City Council / Reef Group / Gingko Projects that uses natural materials to create a contemporary interpretation of the Gothic architecture in the city. Forest Pennant commercial paving products from the Lovell Stone Group were chosen for the horizontal surfaces of the square, which has jet fountains in the middle. The Pennant sandstone was supplied as mixed colour sawn paving, mixed colour bush hammered setts, cropped top setts, radial kerbs with demi bullnose and kerbs. Forest Pennant is quarried and processed in the Forest of Dean, less than 17 miles from Kings Square, contributing to the low carbon footprint of the project. E G Carter was the contractor working with George King Architects.

Last year, two of Marshalls’ senior managers, Dave Sanger and Chris Frankland, decided there was room in the market to establish their own company to supply natural stone to the commercial and domestic landscaping markets. In June, Tectonix Natural Stone was born.

Between them, Chris and Dave have 35 years’ experience of supplying stone to the landscaping industry, Dave on the commercial side and Chris in the domestic sector. And Tectonix aims to use the full extent of the two men’s experience to supply both commercial and domestic projects.

On their website they say the company arose from “a deep-seated passion for natural stone, a passion for the beauty hard landscaping can provide, and a passion for delighting our customers”.

But delighting customers does not stop with stone. There has been a significant growth of the use of porcelain in landscaping in the past few years and while porcelain does not get a mention on the company’s website home page, it is there among the products.

Chris told NSS: “Dave and I are stone people; it’s the reason we got into this business. But there’s a desire and demand for porcelain, so we have a porcelain option.”

He says some people say the porcelain from one country is better than that from others, but Tectonix is finding the porcelain from developing countries it has had tested performs just as well as porcelain from established producers such as Italy, although Tectonix offers products from both.

Nevertheless, stone was the focus that led Chris and Dave into starting their own business. They say they had been talking about it for some years and it was Covid that gelled the idea into action by making them realise you don’t know what’s round the corner so if you want to do something you should get on with it.

Since forming the company Dave and Chris have been joined by another of their colleagues from Marshalls, Ashleigh McHale, who is Operations Manager and facilitating the projects in the business, freeing Chris and Dave to concentrate on customers.

Dave says: “Chris and I are people-led people.” What he means is they want to work with customers on projects, whether those projects are 20m2 patios or major town centre redevelopments, responding straight away to enquiries, sending out samples on the same day they are requested and providing quotes that are straight forward and easy to understand for products that are are perfectly suited for the intended application.

They have used their experience to source stones from all over the world, although they have concentrated on China, Europe and the UK in the main. They have lately found a new source of Yorkstone from a company that recently opened a small delve. They say the stone looks reclaimed, and although they did not set out with the idea of supplying reclaimed stone are happy to have found this distinctive product because they aim to be able to source just the right material for any project they are involved in. And, says Chris, to supply it “with a smile on our face – that’s lost sometimes.”

As they say on their website: “In a nutshell, we believe this is an industry where people and relationships matter, this is why we started Tectonix and in essence what we’re all about.” Dave says they used their relationships and “mined our own networks” to pick up a lot of momentum from people they know. Their first contracts have included the supply of granite for a £100,000 project by Murrill Construction for Watford Borough Council on Queens Road, Watford. The project (pictured on the left) is underway and due for completion in March this year.

With the government and Bank of England concerned about inflation and talking about recession there is a certain amount of doom and gloom about, although Chris says that is not reflected on a project by project basis as far as he is concerned. “I think this is going to be a better year than people think – there’s a momentum. We’re not focusing our energy on the negative.”