The joining together of Cadeby, with its formidable block and processing capacity and precast works, and the seven quarries of BlockStone, produces a major new force in the UK stone industry.

When you enter the new BlockStore at Cadeby Quarry near Doncaster, South Yorkshire, you cannot fail to be amazed by the sheer scale of the setup. It is massive and holds a huge volume of block from the eight quarries now operated by BlockStone.

As reported previously, the shares of BlockStone have been bought by Lee O’Connor, owner of Grants of Shoreditch, the London-based national contractor. He has clearly wasted no time committing to investment in the newly acquired business.

Grants already owned Cadeby Quarry, which covers a 166-acre site with 10million cubic metres of consented limestone reserves, as well as a substantial precast manufacturing unit on the same site.

A large area in the quarry has now been cleared to create the BlockStore, which will accommodate the full range of blocks from the BlockStone quarries. By the time it has been fully stocked, it will hold a minimum of 10,000 tonnes of stone at any one time from across the full range on offer from BlockStone. That range covers 14 beds within the Cadeby Quarry, three beds in Ancaster and six sandstone quarries, giving a total of 23 stone options to choose from.

Specifiers and clients can visit the BlockStore and view the range of stone all in one location without having to visit quarries individually to make their choice.  BlockStone has created a one stop shop for stone similar to the facilities more commonly found on the Continent.

Clients and specifiers are able to see there is plenty of stone for their projects and that it is available already quarried, ready for sawing.

If customers are considering the benefits of off-site production, such as stone on precast, they can take the opportunity of a visit to Cadeby to see Grants Precast, the group’s precast production facility on the quarry site. It contains full scale facade mock-ups of many different types of Precast cladding products.

It has often been said that the stone industry has to make the process of using stone in construction easier if it is to retain and expand its customer base, and the development of the BlockStore has certainly made the process of selecting and incorporating stone into a construction project much easier. This facility is a major step forward for the UK stone industry.

Of course, it is better to go to Cadeby and see the stock on the ground first hand, but you can get an idea of the scope of it and the projects the stones have been used for from the all-new, just launched BlockStone website at www.blockstone.com.

Progress at BlockStone will not stop here. Grants have an additional £1million committed to improvements and development plus plans for the acquisition of additional quarries.

The already planned investment includes a new Dazzini chain saw, like the one sawing block from the face at Cadeby, for Ancaster Quarry, where White and Weatherbed stones are extracted. The other Blockstone quarries are Cove, Stoneraise, Scotch Buff, Wattscliffe, Dukes and Peakmoor, which are buff and red sandstones.

Significant investment has been committed to the development of the Cadeby quarry and the quarry face now has clearly defined, tiered beds from one through to 14.

Before the chain saw was introduced for extraction, the quarry face was not so organized and it was not viable to define each and every bed. Therefore the material has historically been sold as three options – White, Bronze and Gold.

Now, with the tiered extraction that has been introduced, you have a quarry style more commonly found in an Italian marble quarry than an English stone quarry – and it certainly is impressive.

The stone from the distinct beds are displayed on large cladding panels at Cadeby along with the other stones from the BlockStone range. The panels present an overview of the range as well as typical panel sizes achievable from the blocks extracted from each bed or quarry. This gives customers the means to evaluate the stone much more accurately than is possible from the 100mm square samples typically provided by the stone industry to its customers.

“This is, without doubt, the largest and most comprehensive portfolio of large-format British stones available for viewing in one location anywhere in the UK,” says Iain Kennedy, the Sales Director of BlockStone, which includes Cadeby since the purchase by Grants. Iain transferred with Blockstone, as did Paul ‘Bill’ Bailey, the BlockStone Quarry Manager.

Iain: “Clients will be able to view mock-ups that present the typical range for each material and then go on to select the actual blocks for their project right there and then from stock. Our aim is to be the very best supplier of block stone anywhere in the UK, with transparent pricing, fixed for periods of 12 months at a time and reviewed only annually.

“It is only a month since we started to stock the BlockStore and it’s not full yet, but already we have had more than a dozen clients and architects visit it. It’s a fantastic response to what we’re aiming to achieve.”

Before becoming the Sales Director under the Grants ownership, Iain was the Managing Director of Realstone and it was only after Realstone had gone into Administration on 18 May that Grants bought the shares of BlockStone, an associated company that was not insolvent, and some of the assets of Realstone, including its premises in Wingerworth, Derbyshire. It has not yet been decided what will happen there.

Understandably, Iain does not want to dwell on the past and prefers to look towards what he sees as a positive and exciting future. As he told NSS when the BlockStone sale was concluded: “It’s a fantastic development for us because all of a sudden we will have the wherewithall for investment in BlockStone.”

Speaking from Cadeby now the dust has settled he adds: “The business is in a better position now than ever before. As part of an innovative, multi-disciplined construction solutions provider we have access to the investment necessary for the business to fulfil its full potential. We are reinvigorated and going from strength to strength with the supply of premium quality block available ex-stock.”

The new look of BlockStone will be reflected in the new website that was still under development as this magazine went to press but should be up and running by now. The hope is that it will bring in more business generally, but specifically from overseas, especially with the post-Brexit fall in the value of sterling cutting the price of British goods paid for in foreign currency.

BlockStone has exported stones to Germany, Canada and the USA for many years as a legacy of being one of the few British stone producers to have exhibited overseas in the 1990s, when, for a few years before the establishment of the Euro as a currency, it showed its stones at Stein+tec in Nuremberg.

Iain: “With the impetus that has come from the new investment, BlockStone will once again be looking to international markets and exhibiting overseas will certainly be high up on our agenda. However, the way you market stone isn’t just by one route. There are various routes. It’s who you know as well as how you show yourself, and we aim to be very visible as we are acutely aware that product awareness and visibility is extremely important to generating sales. Aside from the incredible BlockStore we also need to be vigorously marketing.”

BlockStone also looks to the benefits of the fall in the pound in its home market. Weaker Sterling will increase the price of imports (it already has) on top of which the price of freight is increasing rapidly, which sets a higher price point for the market in general.

“With these changes there’s a balancing out of the cost difference between British stone and imports. Add to that the immediate accessibility of our stone from the BlockStore and there’s a powerful and compelling argument for using British stone,” says Iain.

An early success has been having Cadeby stone selected by Donald Insall Architects and stone conservation specialist DBR for repairs to the Palace of Westminster. With about £4billion-worth of work in the pipeline for the Houses of Parliament, it could prove to be a good time to have been selected. What was especially attractive about Cadeby was that it is available in practically unlimited quantities in bed heights up to 1.5m. From the time the current structure was being erected in the 19th century bed heights have been an issue (see the previous issue of NSS).

Like a lot of British stone producers, BlockStone has benefitted since the credit crunch of 2008 from the top end of the private sector taking the opportunity of a strong negotiating position, with planners as well as material suppliers, to get more mansion for their money.

For the future, BlockStone cannot help thinking Brexit will produce a lull in activity at some time over the next few years, but overall it is positive, believing the country is big enough to support a healthy construction sector in general.

And, Iain concludes, nothing makes a statement in the built environment quite like stone – especially British stone.