Watson Stonecraft, one of Scotland's longest established and most respected stone companies, is in receivership along with its sister company of Scottish Natural Stone. More than 100 people have lost their jobs.

They may not all be lost for long because a sale of the stone processing equipment at Watson's West Lothian yard by auctioneers Sweeney Kincaid, due to take place on 16 July, was circumvented by all the equipment being bought beforehand. Tradstocks have confirmed they were the purchasers.

Tradstocks, who re-opened the historic Cullalo sandstone quarry in Fife in 2004 and have offices and a showroom at Dunaverig, say they are one of the largest volume suppliers of natural stone for construction and landscaping in Scotland. They have a workforce of 25 and operate three primary saws, six secondry saws and a five-axes CNC machine.

They also now have the six Terzago saws, a BM, a Wells and an ASM profiler that belonged to Scottish Natural Stone, as well as a range of other equipment that includes an old Anderson Grice plane and a water recycling plant.

Scottish Natural Stone operated the stone processing side of Watson's business while Watson Stonecraft carried out the specialist contracting.

There was a warning about Watson Stonecraft in their annual report filed in March this year. Although the figures, showing nearly �9.5million turnover and a pre-tax profit of �169,000, related to 2006, the auditors drew attention to a note warning that a banking facility of �2.25million held by the parent company, Watson Construction Group Ltd, had expired at the end of 2007 and was not being renewed by the Bank of Scotland.

The auditors pointed out that Watson Stonecraft were cross guarantors, which led to "a material uncertainty which may cast significant doubt about the company's ability to continue as a going concern".

Watson Stonecraft carried out many of Scotland's largest and most prestigious stone projects, including the �9million granite fixing on the new Parliamentary building for the country's devolved government, with its cladding of 6,000m2 of silver-grey Scottish Kemnay and 1,000m2 of contrasting Belfast Black from South Africa for the 'trigger' features. The South African granite was worked and supplied by Scottish Natural Stone.

The Scottish Parliament was finished at the end of 2004. It was three years late and 10 times over budget, but Watson Stonecraft came out of it with their reputation enhanced.

In a survey by researchers MRUK in 2004, 200 architects were asked to identify what they considered best companies in construction. Most of their choices were other professionals, but their list included a handful of smaller contractors, one of which was Watson Stonecraft. Watson's reputation for producing high quality work that architects admired had clearly benefited from the project.

Other major projects Watson Stonecraft worked on included the �1.9million Harvey Nichols store in St Andrews Square, the �2million Morgan Academy, nearly �1million worth of stonework at Waverley Gate and �600,000 worth of paving for the Dynamic Earth millennium project that overlooks the Scottish Parliament.

They were also innovators and had worked with the University of Edinburgh on the development of a new, lightweight, stone cladding product to satisfy the building industry's need for off-site, pre-fabricated building solutions with lower levels of waste and reduced transport requirements.

Alex Stark, a stalwart of Stone Federation Great Britain who worked at Watson Stonecraft almost all his working life, told NSS: "I'm more sorry for the apprentices. We used to take on two a year and have trained so many over the years."