Anthony McAdam, of North East Stone Products in Newcastle Upon Tyne, has re-launched the Realstone name.

Realstone was incorporated by David Gregory in 1955. There was a management buy-out led by Managing Director Iain Kennedy in 2010 and it went into Administration in 2016. The company was dissolved in August last year.

The assets and goodwill of Realstone were bought by Grants of Shoreditch in 2016 along with Blockstone Ltd, an associated company of Realstone operating eight quarries. Blockstone did not go into Administration. Iain Kennedy works at Blockstone. He did not wish to comment on the reappearance of the Realstone name.

When Realstone Ltd was dissolved last year, Anthony McAdam registered a new Realstone Ltd, and is now using the name at his Sandy Lane processing yard in Newcastle. He had already registered a company as Realstone (NE) Ltd and at the end of April this year also registered Realstone Gardens Ltd.

Anthony says: “We are creating a garden landscape company to specialize in creating rock / water gardens with the use of Alston natural stone, which really is perfect for all types of garden stonework.”

Anthony once worked for Realstone and Blockstone, which he joined in 2011. He was Block Stone’s Northern Quarries Development Manager and Realstone’s Northern Sales Manager. Part of his job was finding new sources of stone. He says he is now looking for quarries with which to expand the Realstone name and has applied for planning permission to re-open a sandstone quarry last worked in 1937.

Anthony says he always thought David Gregory had chosen in Realstone the perfect name for a stone company. “It’s the A1 name. An industry name of such significance as Google, Facebook or Hoover,” he says.

When Realstone went into Administration he kept an eye on the company name to see if it would become available, and snapped it up when the original Realstone was dissolved.