Great Tew Estate in north-west Oxfordshire, major suppliers of ironstone, have bought the limestone Creeton Quarry in Grantham, Lincolnshire, in what owner Nicholas Johnston describes as "a further step in our efforts to be a major supplier of block stone to the processing industry".

Nicholas bacame interested in Creeton Quarry, about 100 miles from Great Tew, when he saw them exhibiting at the Natural Stone Show in London earlier this year. He thought the stone would make a useful addition to what is now the Johnston Stone Group. And he is open to the idea of further expansion. "I don\'t think it would be fair to say we are actively looking for more quarries, but we want to be aware of other block stone opportunities that might exist," he told NSS.

Great Tew estate is essentially based on agriculture, but planning permission to extend the quarry and diversify the interests of the estate (see NSS September issue) means they are anticipating selling 14-15,000 tonnes of the ironstone next year and they believe sales of Creeton Quarry\'s oolitic limestone will be around 25,000 tonnes. "We want to make sure supply is consistent," says Nicholas. "One of messages I felt was coming from the stone industry was an issue of longevity - block is sometimes available and sometimes not. So customers never know if the stone is going to be available for a project. They can talk to us and quote in certainty that it will be - and at a very reasonable price."

Prices vary with beds and quantities, but best quality Great Tew ironstone block sells for around £57 a tonne and Creeton block will be about

Nicholas says they have good relationships with stone processors and believe there is enough processing capacity around for them not to need to add to it. Their aim is to continue to concentrate on the supply of good quality block to processors. Quarry manager Steve Johnson remains at Creeton with two of the other four people who worked there. Great Tew estate manager and stone production director Adrian Cannon says they will campaign quarry using Great Tew\'s existing Marini drilling rig on a 21-tonne Komatsu that produces particularly regular blocks in bed depths up to 2.4m. They use a Volvo 150 loading shovel, an EC460 excavator and Volvo dump trucks.