Two of the companies taken over by Gordon Verhoef after William Anelay, based in York, went into Administration owing more than £12million in September, have had their names changed to drop the Anelay connection.

Anelay Building & Conservation North East, which had offices in York, and Anelay Building & Conservation, with offices in Greater Manchester, will now trade as Heritage Building & Conservation (York).

Gordon Verhoef is the man behind the London-based national stone and conservation contractor Szerelmey, a group now consisting of a variety of businesses. He set up a holding company, HB&C Investments, in November last year ahead of the acquisitions of William Anelay’s four subsidiary firms: Anelay Building & Conservation, Anelay Building & Conservation (North West), Hare & Ransome and Lowery Roofing. They had been established as separate companies before William Anelay went into Administration (see earlier story about that) and were not themselves insolvent.

The name change is said to align the two Anelay firms with Gordon Verhoef’s existing heritage and conservation interests, which include assets of Cathedral Works Organisation and Fairhurst Ward Abbotts, acquired after they had gone into Administration.

Anelay's masonry business, which the company always claimed was the oldest continually trading stonemasonry company in the country dating back to 1747, had been established as a limited liability partnership ahead of the collapse of William Anelay and continues to trade as Anelay Traditional Masonry from a site in Crigglestone, near Wakefield in West Yorkshire.