Euro Machine Factors (EMF) have moved into stone production with the take over of The Rare Stone Group\'s Glebe Quarry in Ancaster and have broken their association with Classical English Stone, launched in 2002.

The takeover of the quarry will make Ancaster Weatherbed and Hard White block available again from the quarry. A new bed of freestone is also being sold and has already been supplied to a fireplace company.

There was a meeting of creditors of The Rare Stone Group at the beginning of June at which it was agreed to liquidate the company, although the deal arranged by Tim Riley and Clive Williams of EMF will, they say, ensure all creditors are paid in full over a period of time that will depend on the performance of the quarry.

"The insolvency expert thinks we\'re crazy because we could have just walked away from the debt, but we are going to pay it, although it was none of our doing," says Tim Riley. The decision was made because much of the money is owed to small companies who could be hurt by a bad debt.

A new company, Glebe Stone Sales Ltd, has been formed to sell the Ancaster stone. They are based in Ollerton, Nottinghamshire (Tel: 01623 623092), where EMF will also now be based.

In the venture with EMF is Terry Smith, who owned Rare Stone after buying out the two other directors (Peter Fergusson and Keith Davidson) earlier this year. The three of them had bought the company from Ged Mason, a former coal miner, who developed it out of Gregory Quarries, which he bought from liquidators in 1996.

Mason\'s granddaughter, Emma Godson, has stayed with the company and will now be heading sales of the Ancaster stone for Glebe Stone. Terry Smith\'s son, Andy, remains in charge at the quarry, where the four operatives employed by Rare Stone are also retained.

Last year EMF set up a factory, complete with Pedrini tile line, for Classical English Stone, the new company formed by Alistair Jessell and Dick Chard of stone retailers Stonell to make and sell British stone tiles.

Tim Riley and Wayne Evans, at that time directors of EMF, developed the factory under the name of Dimensional English Stone, a division of Classical English Stone. Since then, Wayne Evans has left EMF to work exclusively for Dimensional English Stone.

Tim Riley says: "Being an employee again, for me, I found a little bit difficult."

Classical English Stone intend to float on the London Stock Exchange in March next year and Tim Riley had been offered the opportunity to buy shares at a preferential rate at that time.

However, Riley had wanted a share of the parent company from the beginning, He also felt wearing two hats - working for Dimensional English Stone but continuing with EMF - was already a problem for Classical English Stone, although they had accepted it.

However, adding a third hat with the quarry might not have impressed Stock Market investors and Riley parted company with Dimensional English Stone.

He says the split with Classical English Stone has been amicable and that EMF, who supplied machinery for the Dimensional English Stone factory, are still supporting that machinery. Dimensional English Stone are also continuing to buy Ancaster Weatherbed from Glebe Quarry.

It was because Dimensional English Stone were buying stone from Glebe Quarry that Tim Riley became aware of the problems being faced at Rare Stone. "It didn\'t take too long for me to think I could go away to the quarry and be my own person again," he says, " which has brought us here to the point we are now."