Burlington, the company, have successfully created Burlington, the brand, for their Lakeland stone and limestone. Now they are expanding the brand in interiors – a move that has helped grow the company’s sales by 20% so far this year.

Burlington have successfully created a brand for their Cumbrian slate and limestones, but it is a brand that has traditionally been produced as bespoke items for specific projects. The down side of that is when consumers have wanted tiles for their floors or walls they have faced long lead times. “We fell short of their expectations,” admits Nick Williams, appointed Sales & Marketing Director this time last year.

Not any more. When Chairman Lord Cavendish opened Burlington’s first showroom at their Cavendish House headquarters in Kirkby-in-Furness, Cumbria, in May (see NSS May issue), the company introduced ranges of off-the-shelf, standard products. They include a range of tiles in five natural stones – Broughton Moor, Kirkby, Brandy Crag, and Burlington’s two limestones, Caulfeild and Lord. The greys are most popular, although the distinctive Burlington green stones are beginning to prove popular in bathrooms – and shower trays now form part of the standard product range.

The slate tiles are 12mm thick and the limestone 15mm thick. They are available in four standard sizes – 600x600mm, 600x300mm, 600x150mm and 300x300mm – that can be combined to compose decorative and attractive flooring schemes. They are supplied honed, although various textured finishes can be specified and supplied in short lead-times.

And it seems to have paid off in spectacular fashion, with Burlington sales up 20% on the year.

“In this market we are very, very pleased with that,” says Nick Williams, talking from the Burlington stand at the Grand Designs exhibition in the NEC, Birmingham, this month (October), where Burlington were hoping to increase sales still further.

Along with the push into the consumer market came a new logo (pictured opposite) carrying the serpent of the Cavendish family coat of arms and a coronet, elegantly emphasising Burlington Stone’s position at the top end of the market.

Nick says the £1/2million investment in the 110m2 showroom was money well spent. On their website they describe it as being “set against a stunning, panoramic Lakeland Fells backdrop. It is the perfect location from which to draw inspiration and develop design ideas that simply burst in abundance from a plethora of creative yet functional interior and exterior stone solutions”.

Even more people than expected seem to have decided to draw on that inspiration. Nick had high hopes for the showroom but admits: “We didn’t expect it to be quite so successful.

“It’s worked tremendously well. What we find is that people are excited about what they can get out of a beautiful British stone. And we are proud to be British. We have been around for 150 years and we want to be around for another 150 years. Some of the 141 people working at Burlington are the second and third generations of their families in the company. There’s a lot of enthusiasm – it just took a new approach to ignite that enthusiasm.”

The showroom is helping to spearhead the company’s invigorated drive into the high-end retail, interior design and consumer market sectors. It is having a big impact locally but has also been visited by a host of people from across the UK and overseas, including leading international architects and clients. 

“We have already welcomed a significant number of high profile and well respected clients through our doors and the feedback and the interest that people have shown in what in our minds is the most beautiful natural stone in the world has certainly exceeded our expectations,” says Nick.

As well as their own showroom, Burlington are putting their stone products into other companies’ showrooms, although they are being selective, making sure it only goes to places that project the image they want – they are in Lapicida in Harrogate and the new showroom Lapicida are just opening in London, and have displays in Town & Country in Carlisle. 

Lapicida even have a Burlington stone reserved exclusively for them. It is called Brandy Crag Light. There are limited amounts of it produced from the Brandy Crag quarry (where most of the stone is a darker silver grey) and Lapicida will get all there is. If you want to see it, it is on display in Lapicida’s showrooms. 

Nick: “We have been more focussed on the interior side. Rebranding has helped to badge the product and we have a new brochure showing what its possible to achieve with our stones. 

“On PR we have managed to get some good editorial in interior design and consumer magazines. It’s pushed our message out into the market place. 

“Again, 18 months ago we didn’t really have much of a website presence. It’s better now but it’s still developing – in fact, we have just started making the latest improvements.

“Our objective is to make people aware of what our proposition is. The country is saturated with showrooms full of products from South America, China, India… all over the world. At Burlington we haven’t put ourselves out into that arena. Now we’re having a go. You can’t just wait for it to come to you.”

The American market has also helped boost this year’s sales for Burlington. They are represented in the USA by a company called Stone Source, who have offices in various states. 

“The exchange rate has helped us, I can’t deny that,” says Nick. “There have been some projects where it’s enabled us to be flexible.” 

They are also now looking to return to the Middle East. They have supplied stone to some prestigious projects in the Middle East in the past but have never made a concerted effort to enter the market. Next month they are taking part in an interiors exhibition there to start to develop that market.

Not all sectors of Burlington’s market have been quite so successful. The architectural side has been flat this year and the new range of off-the-shelf hard landscaping products introduced alongside the interior products have not taken off in the same way, although to some extent that was because the interiors range has proved so successful there were less resources available to promote it.

But Burlington remain convinced that offering stones suitable for outside as well as interior use, albeit with a more slip resistant finish when used as paving (such as a waterjet finish just introduced), is an attractive proposition. 

As well as the paving, they are introducing regular sized walling – more like a brick – to give Lakeland walling legs to take it all over the country. And more new products are promised in the year ahead.

There is an optimistic feeling of vigour from Burlington – which they might just need to carry them through the next 12 months. Nick says: “I think the market generally will be harder, particularly towards the end of next year. But having said that, we feel the people who have money will still have money. They will look for the right deal on the right quality product. At our end of the market we think it will still be OK.”