Dimensional English Stone, the operation set up last year by Alastair Jessell and Dick Chard, who created the successful Stonell retail chain, has closed down.

Dimensional English Stone was established in a factory on a four acre site in Matlock, Derbyshire, as a separate company to process English limestones when Stonell created Dimensional English Stone as the parent for the group. They also bought Ashby Stone Masonry, in Northfleet, Kent.

The five Stonell shops and Ashby continue to trade as part of Classical English Stone and are not affected by the liquidation of Dimensional English Stone.

However, plans to take Classical English Stone on to the London Stock Exchange in March 2004 have been shelved.

When Dimensional English Stone was set up Alastair Jessell had for several years believed UK stones could be produced as tiles commercially for an international market and had criticised the UK stone industry for not grasping the nettle.

He decided to do it himself after several particularly successful years with Stonell that saw turnover in 2001 reach £4.2million.

He recruited Tim Riley and Wayne Evans of Euro Machine Factors (EMF) to equip and run the factory at Matlock. Last month (June) Tim Riley left Dimensional English Stone after taking over the operation of a quarry in Ancaster (see the previous issue of NSS) but Dick Chard said Riley\'s departure had nothing to do with the factory closing. Wayne Evans continued to run the factory and is one of 10 people who worked there and have now been made redundant.

The machinery installed at Matlock included a 51-metre Pedrini tile line, as well as the saws and handling equipment to feed it. The aim was to get production up to 400m2 a week.

Dick Chard, whose background is in print production, said when the factory opened that the principles of manufacturing were the same whatever was being produced - to keep the machines running.

But production at the factory, which was due to have started in April last year, did not get underway until June and the ambitious 400m2 target was never reached. Chard says the break-even point was at a level of production well below 400m2 but they could not achieve it.

"We couldn\'t really find sufficient limestone in the UK of sufficient quality to make it viable. We spent a lot of time and effort and money, but we struggled, especially taking large blocks from aggregate quarries," he told NSS."I think what we misunderstood is that when you take stone from an aggregate quarry you\'re never quite sure what you\'re going to get out of it because they move on so fast. You can\'t guarantee what it\'s going to look like in a few months time. I suppose in retrospect it\'s blindingly obvious."

They had always recognised the importance of the supply of stone and had planned to operate their own quarries, but in the end only managed to sign one, Swaledale. They also wanted Alverston, but could not differentiate the colours sufficiently.

They had set out with the ambition of producing tiles from eight different stones but ended up with just two stones coming into the factory. "If we could have found the products we could have been profitable, but we couldn\'t find the products," says Chard.

"The bank came along and said: we love your other businesses, but you\'re making us nervous. We couldn\'t see a turn round. If we could, we might have gone back to investors, but we couldn\'t actually see it turning round."

Dimensional English Stone had been formed with the backing of risk capital investors, so although they lost money, the collapse should not impact adversely on the group as a whole, says Chard.

The factory is for sale and there are some potential buyers. There was a big investment and they would like to sell it as a whole with the machinery. "It\'s of greater value in situ than in its constituent parts," says Chard. "Hopefully someone else can make it work."