The report by Alan Gayle and Barry Hunt ‘Reclaiming the words – What’s in a name” in the previous issue of Natural Stone Specialist said the words ‘natural’ and ‘stone’ should be reserved for products that really are made from natural stone, not concrete. It has elicited a good deal of support from readers.
It has also prompted a response from Simon Scott, the Marketing Director of Haddonstone in Northampton and the author of a book, Artifical Stone: a successful substitute for natural stone?*
Although the title of the book carries a question mark, the book concludes that artificial stone can be a successful substitute for natural stone. At least there is a clear distinction between the two… in the title, anyway.
In the interests of fairness, Simon Scott’s response is reproduced here in full.

Simon Scott, Marketing Director, Haddonstone:

I read the ‘Reclaiming the Words’ article with both interest and disappointment. Terminology is sometimes difficult to understand, but the fact remains that ‘cast stone’ is stone, cast into a mould.
The principle constituent of Haddonstone is limestone and, by hand compacting into a mould, it feels like, looks like and weathers like Portland stone. With colour dyes it can also feel, look and weather like Bath stone.
Cast stone will never supplant natural or quarried stone as a skilled stonemason can achieve undercuts simply not possible with cast technology – but cast stone is undoubtedly an alternative to natural or quarried stone in many instances.
As the article identifies, there have been numerous substitutes for natural or quarried stone over the centuries, some successful and some unsuccessful – just as some natural or quarried stone may be susceptible to delamination or erosion, for example. Neither material is perfect in every instance. Indeed, not all cast stone is of the same quality, but neither is all natural or quarried stone either. That is why Haddonstone became a founder member of the United Kingdom Cast Stone Association – to raise the standard of the cast stone industry.
Today, cast stone designs are so frequently used by private customers and professional clients because they offer many of the benefits of natural or quarried stone but normally at a fraction of the price of natural or quarried stone, particularly when multiples of the same design are required. At Haddonstone, we regularly work with farsighted stonemasons who combine cast and natural or quarried designs on the same project.
In reality, the comparatively low cost of cast stone has often encouraged building works incorporating both quarried or natural and cast stone to proceed when the cost of quarried or natural stone alone would have made a project prohibitively expensive.
Without naming names, I can immediately think of an example of this occurring where a stonemason quoting for the restoration of a historic chapel realised that there were pinnacles at two levels that needed replacing. Knowing that costs had to be kept under control to ensure the project would proceed, rather than propose carving each identical pinnacle design from scratch, he contacted Haddonstone to obtain a price for custom multiple castings and duly won the contract, which also involved considerable amounts of one-off carved stone items where cast stone would probably have been uncompetitive.
I am also aware of circumstances where historic buildings have had stonework entirely removed because it poses health & safety risks which were resolved by removing the problem rather than paying for replacements – to the detriment of both the building’s heritage and the stone industry as a whole.
Rather than squabble over terminology, I would consequently urge cast stone manufacturers and those involved in the natural or quarried stone industries to work together for our mutual benefit.
For stone to be used on a new build or restoration project – whether cast, natural or quarried – must surely be to the benefit of the industry as a whole.

 

Reply from Barry Hunt

There does not appear to be any independent research to back up the various claims made in Mr Scott’s response. If such research does exist I would hope he would share it with us.
I will not deny that some artificial materials perform very well, something that my part of the original article discussed, but many of them do not, or are at best roughly equivalent to stone at the very bottom end of the quality spectrum.
What Mr Scott seems to overlook is that the natural stone industry rightly gets upset when the marketing and sale of artificial materials misleads someone into buying them believing they are purchasing stone. The reverse situation does not happen.
If the architectural mortar / concrete block industry (as I prefer to call it) were more open about its products and their performance, so that people could make an informed decision, the natural stone industry would have no cause for complaint.

Comment from the Editor

My thanks to readers who responded to the articles by Alan Gayle and Barry Hunt in last month’s Natural Stone Specialist arguing that the stone industry should reclaim the words ‘stone’ and ‘natural’ from makers of concrete products. There was overwhelming support for the proposition.
Thanks, too, to Simon Scott of Haddonstone for his response (printed above), although I am sure from the reaction to last month’s articles that his assertion that “cast stone is stone” will result in more comments from readers who believe ‘stone’ is precisely what concrete isn’t.
Whatever else concrete or other man-made products might be, they are clearly not ‘stone’ as the vast majority of people would understand the word. Stone is dug out of the ground as a finished material ready to be shaped by a mason. When it is crushed and added to a man-made cement with various other ingredients it is no longer natural stone. It is concrete.
Simon’s insistence on adding ‘quarried’ every time he mentions natural stone is likely to raise a few hackles as well.
In any case, if the concrete products are so good, why don’t the makers prove it with test results and emphasise the difference rather than trying to pretend they are selling stone?