Stone retailers Stonell have merged with Ashby Stone Masons in Grays, Essex, and launched a new company, called Classical English Stone Ltd, to quarry and process British stone (in spite of the company name there is some Welsh stone in the line-up and Scottish stones might follow).

Ashby Stone Masons\' owner, Nick Harris, joins the main board of the new firm with Alastair Jessel, managing director of Stonell, and Dick Chard, Stonell\'s commercial director.

Classical English Stone will be the parent company that will encompass Stonell, with their seven retail outlets.

Classical English Stone will also be the parent of Dimensional English Stone Ltd, a company formed to run a factory on a four-acre site in Matlock, Derbyshire, that will house a 51m Pedrini tile line, among other machinery, to process the group\'s stone.

The quarries will each be separate companies - there are seven expected to be included in the initial line-up with more intended to follow quickly.

It was Jessel and Chard who, with backgrounds outside the stone industry, opened the first Stonell shop in Battersea in 1995. Most of the stones sold by them have been imported.

The shop in Battersea has been closed lately for a refit and was due to re-open on 22 February with a new format showing a wider range of products, including the new Classical English Stone lines and worktops from Ashby Stone Masons.

The Matlock factory is being set up and run by Tim Riley and Wayne Evans, of Euro Machine Factors (EMF), the machinery sales and maintenance company formed by the two men in 1998.

Clive Williams, who joined them from Asahi Diamond, will continue to run EMF.

Dick Chard says: "Alastair and I bring business knowledge to the venture, but we needed people with expertise in stone processing. Tim Riley and Wayne Evans, and Nick Harris have what we don\'t have in that area."

The stones on offer initially are mainly hard limestones from the North of England and Wales that can take a polish, although they will be available in various finishes.

The new operations, including Ashby, are being kept at arms length from Stonell because Classical English Stone want to supply other retailers, masons, builders and contractors, abroad as well as in the UK, in order to get volume up and prices down.

Alastair Jessel predicts the move will more than double his turnover to £10million within two years, when he will float the business on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange.