Hutton Stone, based close to Berwick upon Tweed in the Scottish Borders, has bought a new Volvo EC380E crawler excavator to work in Darney sandstone quarry in Northumberland, which Hutton took over in June.

The new 38-tonne EC380E will become the prime mover at Darney, which is just off the A68 near the village of East Woodburn.

The new machine is equipped with a hydraulic attachment bracket, a bespoke 1,200mm wide, long floored bucket and a ripper tooth designed and manufactured by Leybourne Engineering.

The best quality 12-14tonne blocks from the quarry are converted into high-quality sandstone masonry and ashlar for prestigious building restoration, renovation and new build projects in major conurbations such as Edinburgh and Glasgow, although Darney stone has relevance throughout the north of England and all of Scotland. It has also been used for projects in London and many parts of Ireland.

Quarry Manager Martin Brachtvogel says: “We need to be flexible in what we are extracting according to customer demands. This type of quarrying is all about finding tangible products from as many elements of the geology as possible.

“To that end we’ll be producing material from dry-stone walling through stock-sized coursed walling for new housing, paving and rockery stone [to] all elements of dimension stone masonry that are required in the new build and restoration sector, including block and slab for other manufacturers around the country.”

Block and slab that is not sold to customers directly from the quarry will go to Hutton’s main workshops in the Borders for further processing by the company’s own team of experienced sawyers, stonemasons and carvers.