Offering more than 100 indigenous and imported natural stone products has helped Black Mountain Quarries maintain sales during the recession and smooth out the peaks and troughs of demand

Adrian Phillips, Managing Director of Black Mountain Quarries, calls the stone from his Callow Quarry at Buckholt, between Monmouth and Hereford, brown rather than the red of St Bees that it often competes with for projects.

The sandstone from Callow Quarry is not as red as St Bees, which is why Adrian likes to make the distinction, emphasising that it is the best match for buildings in Herefordshire and Monmouthshire that were traditionally built from the local stone.

“There are big swathes of the country desperate for a browner sandstone than St Bees,” says Adrian. He mentions Devon, Cornwall, Cheshire, Bristol and Glasgow in addition to the quarry’s own hinterland.

Callow Quarry is a block stone producer’s dream. The stone is in beds of up to about 2m and comes away from the face in fairly regularly shaped blocks of anything up to 65tonnes without having to be blasted. It is just freed using a spike on an excavator.

It then has to be split into manageable sizes for transport and processing, but that is good news for customers buying the block because any faults or colour variations within it are identified in the Quarry.

Black Mountain Quarries (BMQ) bought Callow Quarry in 2007 and are glad they did because the extra stone has helped them ride the recession.

They can produce 40-50 tonnes of block from the Quarry a week and have won some major projects with it.

They are supplying the stone for a major refurbishment of the market area of Abergavenny, where Callow matches the stone used to construct the Grade II listed 19th century market building. They are also currently supplying 900m2 of walling for a private house. As well as the walling, Callow stone is being used for masonry details – there have been 130 linear metres of hoods over the windows alone.

BMQ have no problem supplying the stone for major projects such as this. Indeed, they would be delighted to supply more of them.

As well as local stone, BMQ have always sold imported stone, although the recession has hit their imported stone sales harder than it has their local stone sales.

The imported stone, most of which comes from India, can be a third of the price of the local stone but the people who have been building and carrying out home improvements in the past two years have tended to be those who can afford to be particular about the stone they want – or have been required by planners to use it because of the sensitivity of the building or its location.

As well as Callow Quarry, BMQ also operate Black Mountain Quarry, which was their introduction to the stone industry. This was opened up as a result of English Heritage looking for suitable sandstone for the re-roofing of nearby Dore Abbey.

The Quarry is on a farm owned by Adrian’s father. Adrian has since bought the Quarry from his father and he also leases a third Quarry, Llandraw, which produces sandstone flags and roofing tiles.

Natural stone roofing is an important part of BMQ’s mix, accounting for about half of their sales. They have both local and imported roofing stone (all carrying appropriate test results) because, as they say, it is horses for courses.

They are currently supplying local roofing stone for Newland Church (known as the Cathedral of the Forest), an important historical building.

For someone involved in a self-build or re-roofing their home, a less expensive but matching import can be fine and is certainly better than concrete as far as Adrian is concerned.

“The best concrete tiles will ever look is on the day you put them on the roof, whereas natural stone tiles improve daily. We’re not trying to change the world; we’re just offering alternatives in a natural stone.”

All three quarries also produce random walling. BMQ process their own stones and have two Wells Wellcut saws, croppers, a Wells tumbler and a Gilbert wire saw at the workshops, headquarters and showrooms on their family farm at Pontrilas in Herefordshire.

The imported stone arrives finished as coursed roofing, walling or paving, with the paving calibrated to 22mm so it is suitable for interior floors as well as for outdoor use.

Before the crash of September 2008, Adrian was importing 100 containers a year. A fair bit of that used to be Irish stone but with the fall of sterling that has become too expensive, which is why nearly all the imports now come from India.

During the recession BMQ’s imports fell to a low of around 40 containers, although that is recovering again thanks to both a pick up in demand and the introduction of stone panels called Z-Clad. These are sections of random walling in a ‘Z’ shaped panel of stone on a reinforced concrete backing.

The ‘Z’ shape of each section hides the joints. The panels can be glued on to block work up to 3m high (Ardex Flexible Adhesive is recommended). Above 3m a mechanical fixing is also used. They can be used for exteriors or as a feature wall for interiors.

Adrian says skilled bricklayers can lay 40m2 of these panels in a day but even competent unskilled workers and DIYers could lay 20-30m2 – probably 10 times more than they could achieve if they were laying individual pieces of stone.

Development of the product is continuing and Adrian expects to be launching another version, which is even easier to fix, in the coming months – although as it is still being developed details are under wraps.

The panels have been sold on the Continent for some time and are especially popular in Spain, which is where Adrian came across them. However, he says he has flown thousands of miles and suffered a huge amount of frustration to achieve a product he believes is right for the UK market – a belief that sales seem to be justifying.

What makes the panels particularly popular is that the finished wall is likely to look the way a wall should look when built with random walling stone. The overall effect of Z-Clad is of a seamless dry stone wall, although it is achieved without all the hard work.

Adrian: “If I sell random walling I have at the very most 60% influence on what the finished wall looks like. If the wall is built by someone who is not used to laying stone it can be spoilt. Usually the stone gets blamed rather than the building, which is not good for my reputation. With the stone panel, if you like the look of my display you will like the look of your wall as it will be the same – not exactly the same as it is still natural stone and each panel is slightly different, but the overall look will be the same.”

Adrian believes that almost anyone can use the panels after reading a set of simple instructions and is currently looking for partners to introduce these panels to a mass market. If you would like to get involved he would be interested to hear from you – Tel: 01981 241541.

The panels are sold in packs and three packs will cover one square metre, so working out how much you need should be easy enough for anyone who can multiply by three.

BMQ’s financial year ends in May and Adrian says this is not going to be a bad year for him and certainly better than last year. He has recruited extra people as he is selling more stone from his own quarries, which requires more work to extract and process than imports.

He attributes his success to, as he says, “fingers and pies” – as in having fingers in a lot of pies. BMQ have around 100 products in their ranges. “We would be finding it difficult on any one of the product ranges,” he says.

It is not just a question of products, though, it is also a question of sheer hard work and an attitude of finding solutions to customers’ needs – and one of their needs these days is being able to find what they want on the internet.

BMQ strive to keep their website current, employing someone three days a week to update it so customers can be aware of products, prices and special offers available.

Stone can be bought directly from the website, although only a small percentage of sales arrive that way. Usually, someone who has seen a product on the website will telephone to talk about it, which means the way the phone is answered is important. Some customers will place an order after a chat or on receiving a sample, although many people want to view the product range. BMQ therefore encourage customers to visit their showroom, where everything is displayed on purpose built panels.

Adrian believes that this attention to detail, high quality materials and a first class customer service will ensure his customers are satisfied and encourage them to choose Black Mountain Quarries again and again.