Have you had a look at the English Stone Forum website lately? Neither had I. You know what they say: out of site, out of mind.

Unless you actually use the words ‘stone forum’, searches including the word ‘stone’ do not tend to bring the English Stone Forum website up on the first few results pages – in fact, no search term I could come up with that included ‘stone’ did, except when associated with ‘forum’.

That’s a bit of a shame because the site has grown quite nicely into a useful portal for information about stone and the use of stone in the built heritage of the country.

It does rather concentrate on the ‘heritage’ side of the industry when there is nothing in the title of ‘English Stone Forum’ that suggests it should – there is even a link to the National Heritage Training Group but not one to the Natural Stone Industry Training Group, even though the NSITG is represented on the Forum.

Of course, that might be deliberate because there are plenty of links to the Stone Federation website and the Natural Stone Industry Training Group’s internet presence is on the Stone Federation site, whereas the National Heritage Training Group has a rather good site of its own – but then its funding is magnitudes greater than the Natural Stone Industry Training Group’s.

I should also point out that Stone Federation are the secretariat of the English Stone Forum and it is the Stone Federation contact details that appear on the site for those who want to get in touch, so they are not exactly being excluded.

Apart from that little gripe, the site is absolutely bristling with links to other useful sites. It has one second tier page called ‘portal’ with links to an extraordinary number of sites to do with the use of stone in architecture, planning, geology and a whole range of associated topics. You could spend a week trying to find the sites for yourself… but you don’t have to because the English Stone Forum has done it for you.

It is not only on the ‘portal’ page that there are links to other useful websites, though. Whatever second tier page you look at there are links to other sites. I have to admit I did not click through to all of them or this report would not have been written yet. Those I did click through to all seemed relevant and active, so it certainly looks as if someone is vetting them thoroughly.

There is a second tier page called ‘latest news’. Regular readers will know such pages always fill me with trepidation because the essence of news (ie that it is new) seems to escape many people.

The English Stone Forum ‘latest news’ section was disappointing. It seems to have been up-dated three times last year – in January, August and December – and three times the year before. Reports of the English Stone Forum meetings of March and June do not seem to have made it on to the page until August. The October meeting report appears under the December entry.

But wait! Confusingly, if you click on ‘information’ you get options of ‘notes of meetings’ and ‘press releases’. Notes of meetings takes you to the same page you can reach from the ‘latest news’ page but ‘press releases’ does not take you to the ‘latest news’ page.

There is so much information on this site that it really needs to be organised absolutely straight-forwardly, which I did not find it always was. There are many different places to go and you can get lost in the labyrinth of connectivity, which can make it difficult to find one of the many gems it has to offer a second time.

While I have concentrated on all the links, which are an impressive feature of this site, it is beginning to develop a content of its own that could be of interest without having to click through to another website or download a publication.

Given the organisations represented on English Stone Forum (you can see who they are on the website) it has the potential to be a source of thoroughly authoritative contributions to the stone industry. Perhaps even a blog. While blogs can be dreary self-indulgences, you would think a blog by ESF members would make a serious contribution to debate.

I recommend the site to anyone who wants to see what has already been published about stone, on the internet or elsewhere – it is a lot easier than using a search engine. And I look forward to seeing the English Stone Forum’s own contribution developing. My rating for now: 87%.