Stone and conservation specialist DBR Ltd has won a place on the Houses of Parliament Restoration & Renewal Delivery Authority’s £80million Intrusive Survey Commercial Framework.

Appointment to this Framework follows a competitive bid process, which saw some of the most highly regarded specialist contractors in heritage conservation vying for the work.

The skill and precision of DBR’s team of master craftspeople was recently demonstrated on the Elizabeth Tower (Big Ben) conservation project (read about that here) and the decade-long restoration of the Palace of Westminster’s Encaustic Tiles, both of which no doubt featured in DBR’s successful bid for the survey work.

The selected investigating specialists will carry out dozens of detailed building surveys, looking at historic stonework, digging bore holes to carry out underground examinations, carrying out archaeological digs, and mapping out asbestos in more detail.

This next phase will represent the largest and most in-depth survey undertaken on the Houses of Parliament since its rebuilding after a devastating fire in 1834. It will provide a true understanding of the condition of the building and the extent of restoration work required. The project is also expected to unearth some of the building’s historic secrets.

Commenting on the successful bid, DBR’s Executive Director, Adrian Attwood, says: “DBR is privileged to be awarded a place on Parliament’s R&R Framework as Conservation Contractor.

“Over the next few years, DBR’s skilled craftspeople will be carrying out careful and intrusive investigation work to inform the condition of the Parliamentary Estate’s Grade 1 listed buildings, playing a crucial role in this massive, but essential, discovery project.”

“Not only will working on this unique UNESCO world heritage site be a great opportunity to showcase our team’s extensive conservation knowledge and expertise, it will also serve as the perfect platform on which to champion heritage skills.

“Through campaigns such as our own ’Year of the Master Craftsperson’, to introduce more craft apprentices to the conservation of our built heritage, we hope this project will make a compelling case for encouraging more young people to consider a heritage skills-based career.”

David Goldstone, CEO of the Houses of Parliament Restoration & Renewal Delivery Authority, says: “We are carrying out dozens of in-depth surveys to build the most detailed record of the Palace of Westminster ever created, to inform restoration work to protect the building. The hard work of specialists from across the UK will be invaluable as we continue to focus on the vital work needed to secure the future Parliament.”

Work on the Intrusive Survey phase will begin in the spring and is expected to take five years to complete.

Stone fabricators Bellagio and Marble Ideas have merged, as reported in the December issue of Natural Stone Specialist magazine. Here they talk about the collaboration.

Bellagio and Marble Ideas entered 2022 under the new name of Bellagio Marble Ideas, as the two companies merged.

Bellagio is in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and Marble Ideas in Langley, part of Slough in Berkshire. They were far enough apart not to stand on each other’s toes, although they did sometimes find themselves in competition with each other, especially in London, as well as sometimes collaborating.

As they said in the previous issue of Natural Stone Specialist when the merger was announced, one of the benefits of having two sites is that it can reduce the distance fixers have to travel to reach their destinations.

The further they have to go, the harder it is to get there on Britain’s crowded road network, especially as there are often delays caused by roadworks and accidents. As Rob Wilkinson, the Managing Director of Bellagio, says: “Travel is a massive issue and it’s going to get bigger and bigger.”

Templaters and fixers don’t want to have to drive for two or three hours before they can start work. Having the two sites about 100 miles apart means the vans can set off from whichever site is nearest.

But of course, solving traffic problems is not the only reason for the merger.

Like minds

Rob Wilkinson, who heads Bellagio, and Steve Buck, the founder of Marble Ideas, discovered they had a lot in common during trips arranged by some of the companies that make the slabs the fabricators use.

Those trips also spawned the Worktop Fabricators Federation (WFF), of which Bellagio was a member and now Bellagio Marble Ideas is a member. Two of Bellagio’s Directors, Mike Boydon and Ben Prole, are also Directors of the WFF.

Rob Wilkinson could see the benefit of belonging to the WFF to raise the standing of professional companies in the sector. He believes the organisation will really take off if a builder such as Berkeley decides to use WFF members exclusively. He thinks it will happen as an assurance of getting kitchens supplied and installed in a professional, transparently specified way.

Rob has become convinced of the benefit of the idea by being one of Silestone’s ‘Platinum’ fabricators, which gives Bellagio (and now also Marble Ideas) Silestone’s accreditation as a top-notch supplier and installer of its products.

Some kitchen studios (although not all) insist on being supplied by Platinum fabricators because the fact that a Platinum fabricator is doing the work sounds good and can enhance the sales message even if the customer does not know exactly what being a Platinum fabricator actually means.

Whether or not the WFF can convince major developers to insist on using WFF members, Rob could see the benefit of joining forces with like-minded, quality focussed companies, which was also the reason he wanted to grow Bellagio through a merger, moving up to the next level together, expanding geographically with improved buying power and competing for even the largest of projects.

And he thought Steve Buck of Marble Ideas would make the ideal partner, although it took him more than two years to convince Steve it was the right move.

They formed the new company, Bellagio Marble Ideas Ltd, in September, and have now completed all the niceties with HM Revenue & Customs to start 2022 as the new company.

Steve says he is “totally committed” to the new company and Rob says it was necessary because although they had worked together before, “however strong your friendship is, you both have your eye on your own business. Now we will both have our eyes on the same business”.

Customer interface

The new company has more than 80 employees in the two factories and offices, plus about 30 sub-contractors it will regularly use for templating and fixing, although both Bellagio and Marble Ideas would rather employ and train their own templater/fitters and say they would employ more if they could recruit them. As Rob says: “They’re the advert for the company. They’re the people customers see.”

As a group they hope to employ another 15-20 people and have a target of pushing 40 finished jobs a day in three to five years.

Steve and Rob both have right-hand men who have been with them for much of their careers and who they both credit with having helped them steer a successful business path. For Rob it is Mike Boydon and for Steve it is Tony Johns, which is why they are both also shareholders in Bellagio Marble Ideas.

The sales and administration team in Bellagio’s offices in Leamington Spa.

Although Bellagio and Marble Ideas are now both part of Bellagio Marble Ideas Ltd, they retain their original trading names... for now, at least.

They say they might also look for a third company to join them to extend their reach into the busy Bristol/Exeter area.

Apart from travel arrangements, one of the immediate benefits of joining forces for Bellagio and Marble Ideas is that they can share each others stock, which is useful with supplies being sporadic through the toxic mixture of Brexit and Covid. “Stock transfer between us is easy,” says Steve.

All costs are increasing, from the price of slabs to the energy to process them. The price of transport is adding to the pressure with a container having gone up from about £2,000 to between £15,000 and £20,000, and even fuel prices for transport in this country are around 25% higher than at this time last year.

Until the end of last year Bellagio and Marble Ideas had held their prices in the belief that the rising costs would fall again as normality was resumed, although as the year progressed that was looking increasingly unlikely. In December the Bank of England thought inflation had become enough of a threat to increase base rates and at the start of this year Bellagio Marble Ideas felt it had to protect its margins and pass on some of the price increases to customers. “You have to make a decision at some point,” says Rob. “It’s about safeguarding the business.”

Safeguarding the business

He and Steve say the merger of their two companies is also about safeguarding their businesses. “What’s good about the merger is that we are both very stable businesses,” says Rob. “Together we’re big enough to make it happen.”

Marble Ideas has been trading for 30 years next year and Bellagio was formed in 2006.

Before starting their own companies, both Steve and Rob had worked for other stone companies.

Steve started working in stone when he left school aged 16 in 1984. He had been good at technical drawing at school and was keen to become a draughtsman, which was the position he was offered at Southall marble company Honey Allaway.

Steve is grateful for his time at Honey Allaways, and particularly to Alf Thompson, a man who worked at the company for 50 years. “He was an old-school master mason. I learnt about quality and how things should be done from him. That’s stuck with me ever since.”

Although it was not stone that attracted Steve into the industry, he encompassed it as a speciality. He moved to stone wholesaler Pisani’s depot in Brentford – which taught him a lot about the range of stones available – and then on to Croft Brothers in Finchley as contracts manager.

The combination gave him a good grounding in the industry for when he started his own business in 1992. From the start he called it Marble Ideas, although originally he and his co-Director, Tony Johns, began by templating and installing only. The company expanded and after five years opened its own factory in a former engineering works in Uxbridge.

In 2015 Marble Ideas moved into its current premises in Langley, next to the railway station, which provides easy access by public transport into London for seeing clients and for digital templating.

Langley is not far from Uxbridge, but Uxbridge is in London and Langley is in Berkshire, and Marble Ideas got three-and-a-half times the space it had occupied in Uxbridge at much the same cost. It has a 1,600m² factory and offices and a 1,800m² yard with a gantry where the slabs are unloaded and some are stored.

Before starting Bellagio, Rob worked for Oriental Stone, which was wound up some time after he left it. He started his business in a small unit where the neighbours complained about the noise and dust involved in him cutting stone, so he moved to a larger unit that allowed him to expand and in 2016 moved into his current, 2,000m² modern premises that give him comfortable, open-plan offices and a showroom as well as a well equipped factory.

Complementary production

Both companies have similar production capabilities. In Langley, Marble Ideas’ machinery includes three Brembana CNCs and a waterjet, four Emmedue saws and two Marmo Meccanica edge polishers.

Bellagio went for Breton CNCs, of which it has two working alongside an older Intermac. It has two Breton bridge saws, including a CombiCut that combines disc and waterjet cutting, and uses Comandulli edge polishers.

Bellagio Marble Ideas is currently investing in Thibaut horizontal cut saws for both factories, so they can cut slabs for vertical use that will vein match with worksurfaces.

Parts of the factories of Marble Ideas (above) and Bellagio (below). Their target is to achieve a production rate approaching 40 worktops a day within three-to-five years, although Marble Ideas hopes to have moved into a new factory by then.

The merger will give both companies the same accounting staff, but they say the merger was never intended as a cost-cutting exercise. In fact, both sites would like to employ more people, especially fitters and skilled CNC operators, but are finding the same difficulty of recruitment as the rest of the country. Retention is not such a problem because they say they pay well in a conscious effort to develop elite teams.

They anticipate, as a larger company, picking up more work that they might not previously have been able to win, but say a 10-15% increase will push them to their limit. They are already talking about Marble Ideas moving into larger premises within a couple of years.

Bellagio is working two shifts on its CNCs and edge polishers, although Marble Ideas is on a single shift.

Although both factories supply individuals and trade customers, most of their work is for the trade in a fairly wide geographical spread and they would like to increase the amount of domestic work they carry out within an hour’s drive from the factories.

Public relations

The new company has employed a public relations professional to try to increase the amount of work they win from householders, especially as Bellagio has an attractive showroom for them to visit – although Mike Boydon says they have learnt a valuable lesson from the website not to be too up-market or people are put off because they think the prices will be high.

Both Bellagio and Marble Ideas have worked on some impressive projects and boast customers such as Pizza Express in Marble Ideas’ case and Wagamama in Bellagio’s.

Bellagio has also been working with housebuilder Redrow for nine years and Steve Morgan, who used to own Redrow, was impressed enough to continue to use Bellagio for his own projects after selling the company.

During 2020 Bellagio continued to supply some Redrow projects and has reason to be grateful for the government-backed Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme that meant it was able to do so. It was squeezed because although Redrow only wanted 20% of the kitchen worktops it had previously needed, Bellagio needed 80% of its workforce to supply them. And it did not want to stop supplying them for fear of losing the contract. That continued for six months or so during which the loan kept the company afloat before demand returned to its former level.

Marble Ideas closed down for three months with the first lockdown in 2020 with staff furloughed (using the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme). When they returned to work, Steve says the main difficulty was finding people working at home to make decisions. Teams were no longer in the same office and able to talk to each other, so getting decisions was frustratingly difficult. “Even now it’s crazy trying to get hold of people,” he says.

But nobody ever said running a business would be easy and whatever difficulties they might face in the years ahead, Steve and Rob are convinced they are better able to face them together.

Pictured in Bellagio’s showroom in Leamington Spa are (left to right) Mike Boydon, Steve Buck, Ben Prole and Rob Wilkinson.

Ten years ago Dave Cranfield set himself up in business caring for the increasing amount of stone being used in people’s homes. As Athena Stonecare celebrates its first decade, Dave and his wife, Becca, look forward to its second.

This year Athena Stonecare has reached the landmark of its 10^th anniversary – a decade of keeping stone floors flawless, as the company says on its website.

And not just floors. Natural stone care specialist Athena Stonecare cleans and restores floors, bathrooms, kitchen and vanity worktops, paved terraces and patios. It provides specialist stone restoration services for marble, limestone, travertine, granite, sandstone, slate... whatever is required.

The company is spearheaded by husband and wife team Becca and Dave Cranfield, with two more team members supporting on site. And it makes full use of social media (especially LinkedIn and Instagram) to get the company’s message into the market place, with Becca now being assisted by Larissa Hardisty, who has been recruited as Marketing & Communications Assistant.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Respiratory Health (APPG) is conducting a one year update inquiry on its 2020 report into silicosis. 

The 40-page 2020 report was called Silica – the next asbestos? If you have not read it yet you can download it below. It calls for the silica exposure limits to be halved, bringing them down to the same level as the limits in America.

The update now is to consider developments in risk reduction strategies for companies involved in silica dust exposure.

Silica – the next asbestos? summarised the results of a joint six month enquiry by the APPG and B&CE (originally Building & Civil Engineering Holiday Scheme Management Ltd, a financial services company best known for The People’s Pension). That enquiry looked at the disease burden of silicosis, the diagnosis, treatment and management of the disease and the impact on the lives of people suffering from it.

Silicosis is the most common chronic occupational lung disease worldwide^[1]. It is the biggest dust danger to construction workers after asbestos and is entirely preventable^[2].

It is estimated 600,000 workers are exposed to silica in the UK and the consequences of silicosis are estimated to cost employers in the construction industry about £1million per year.

Since Silica – the next asbestos? was published, a number of stakeholders have contacted the APPG with updates and advances on new technologies designed to further protect the workforce, all of which the Group was unaware of at the time of the original report.

Hugh McKinney, Policy Adviser and Secretariat of the APPG, says: “We have decided to update the report to enable us to consider technological advances in the proper context and explore their advantages.

“We would like to invite all businesses and other stakeholders within the construction industry to submit evidence to our update report.”

Any organisations or individuals interested in submitting evidence should contact Hugh McKinney on hmckinney@denovostrategy.co.uk.

The deadline for submissions is 4 March 2022.

Tudor Stonework in Middlesex has been fined £466 and ordered to pay £5,570 costs after an employee was struck by a forklift truck while he was helping guide the movement of a slab. 

The forklift ran over the employee’s foot, resulting in an open fracture to his left leg as well as crush injuries to his foot.

Peterborough Magistrates’ Court heard this month (9 February) how on 22 January 2019 the employee of Tudor Stonework Ltd was injured when stone slabs were being lifted by a forklift.

The system of work required two operatives to walk in front of the forklift truck to steady the suspended load. However, during this operation the forklift truck ran over the foot of one of the operatives.

An investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) into the incident found that the system of work for transporting stone slabs was not safe, as it required the operatives to be in close proximity to the moving forklift truck.

Tudor Stonework Ltd of Silver Street, Enfield, Middlesex, a specialist in interior and exterior stonework, pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2(1) of the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974. It was fined £466 and ordered to pay costs of £5,570.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Tom Pouncey said: “Industry practices should be reassessed where other stonemasons may be transporting stone slabs in a similar way.

“Companies should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those that fall below the required standards.”

Cullifords is a supplier of natural stones from markets all over the world. Specialising in marble, granite, quartzite, travertine, onyx and slate, it has earned its reputation as a specialist in the stone business over more than 50 years.

Boasting a stock of more than  3,000 materials at its Kingston-Upon-Thames yard, Directors Oliver Webb and James Semmens work to the same philosophy that Oliver’s uncle, Simon Sands, and Gerald Culliford did before them, bringing some of the world’s finest quality and most interesting stones to the UK and providing in-depth expertise and a first-class service to its customers.

Despite the effects of the pandemic and multiple lockdowns, Cullifords had its best ever November, helping to make 2021 one of the top five years in the company’s history.

Every product category performed strongly compared with previous years, resulting in an overall uplift across the entire business.

New introductions

2021 also saw Cullifords’ highest ever sales in porcelain slabs – up 330% on 2020.

Cullifords’ ceramic offering is responding to the growing demand and, having initially stocked 12mm thick surfaces, the collection has now expanded to include 6mm and 20mm slabs as the partnership with Fiandre Group develops.

Impressed by Fiandre’s commitment to producing top quality imagery and replication of natural stones, as well as offering excellent sampling and display support, Cullifords is excited to be collaborating with the Group.

Champions of full colour, full-bodied materials that show detail running through the slabs in the areas where veins should fold over the edges, the innovative technology used to manufacture the slabs is getting better with each new range.

New for this year is Seminato, a follow-on from the full-bodied terrazzo tile range, with the colours and dots following right through the slab.

The technology used harks back to how porcelain was made more than 50 years ago, with the same technology now starting to be used to produce marble effects, where the vein will be even more obvious when running through the material.

Natural Stone

Being fiercely passionate about the highest quality material in natural stone means sourcing from companies in the market, which are able to offer the highest quality blocks from a quarry.

“We are not a company that pushes down the price, and therefore the quality, to increase our own sales or margins. We would prefer to strive for better quality products whenever we can,” says Oliver Webb.

It is an approach and a philosophy that has led Cullifords to partner with Norwegian company Lundhs, which shares the same values when it comes to the production and marketing of stone products.

Cullifords is also working with Stonethica, another sustainable but high-quality product made from waste pieces of cut-to-size materials from the Carrara area of Italy.

Commenting on the increase of ceramic and quartz imitating natural stone and marketing the ‘natural’ look, Oliver Webb states: “We believe this is only benefiting natural stone sales – the more imagery out there of beautiful marbled bathrooms and kitchens, the more people ask for that type of product.

“So if we are able to offer these products across all durability and price points, we are able to capitalise on each prospect and enquiry that comes to us.

“Perhaps that’s why we saw all our product categories doing so well in the latter half of last year.”

Having also started this year with a bang, Cullifords has just completed resurfacing half of its Kingston-Upon-Thames yard, as well as installing new A-frames to make handling easier for the staff and viewing easier for customers, who can now see whole slabs and safely walk between them.

Sustainability

As part of Cullifords’ commitment to a more sustainable future, it has engaged with a company called The Sustainability Hub, which will be looking at the business in terms of supply chain and product origin through to disposal.

The results will inform the company and its customers about changes that can be made and products that can be switched to, making the industry more accountable towards a sustainable future.

Looking forward

With strong sales continuing in January, Cullifords is anticipating another bumper year ahead as lockdown projects start to reach the finishing stage.

China’s zero Covid policy could put pressure on quartz supplies in the market, although a good proportion of Cullifords’ quartz is the Radianz brand from Lotte, which is made in Korea, and Korea has been less affected by Covid than China.

Another area the company is focusing on is its restoration and dimensional stone supply, looked after by James and Oliver themselves.

They identify and supply limestone and granite façades, flooring and unusual dimensional pieces for many projects in central London and around the UK.

This is a part of the business seeing a major uplift in enquiries and new work is coming through in abundance. It is an area Cullifords will be looking to focus on more this year.

Oliver and James especially enjoy these types of projects, often involving prestigious buildings with requirements for stone that can stretch their minds and abilities in order to identify and source some of the trickier materials from around the world.

It is a challenge that, quite simply, they love!

A wall of black stone panels erected at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin in 2016 on the centenary of the Easter Rising, which paved the way to Irish independence, has been attacked for the third time. 

The wall is controversial because it was being inscribed with the names of all those who died in the conflicts from 1916 to the end of the Irish civil war in 1923. That has meant soldiers from the Republican Army and the British Army, as well as both Roman Catholic and Protestant civilians, can appear next to each other.

The idea was for the wall, which is called the Necrology Wall, to be an icon of reconciliation, but it became a wall dividing political and religious beliefs, with some dubbing it ‘The Wall of Shame’.

On the previous two occasions it was damaged the stone and the inscriptions were repaired. Now the Dublin Cemeteries Trust says the damaged wall will be replaced with plain black, uninscribed stone panels.

In a statement, the Trust says it believes if the wall were to be repaired and the names reinstated for a third time it would be vandalised again, and that the Trust is not in a position to be able to keep repairing it nor to provide sufficient security to ensure it is not damaged again. "For these reasons, to repair and continue with the Necrology Wall project is no longer feasible."

Violet-Anne Wynne, a Sinn Féin member of the Irish Parliament, has welcomed the decision. In a statement on Twitter she wrote: "There was outrage when this wall was mentioned in the first place. Why? Simple really, on the wall it commemorates a war that wasn't ours, it commemorates a group of people that caused so much pain in this country, killing people and raiding homes of innocent people."

This (7-12 February) is National Apprenticeship Week, and to help companies make the most of it, CITB has produced a series of online ‘toolkits’ to support construction employers who want to hire an apprentice.

These website toolkits simplify access to information and reduce the obstacles that often deter employers from looking into the process. They include advice on writing apprenticeship adverts and interviewing as well as links to additional resources on integrating Fairness, Inclusion & Respect principles into the process.

With 70% of SMEs in construction having fewer than 10 employees, making these toolkits quick and easy to use was fundamental. Each section has clear, easy-to-follow headings so employers can find what they are looking for straight away.

Click here to see the website toolkits.

They detail the various routes to hiring an apprentice across England, Scotland, and Wales. From there, there’s a choice of four other sections to explore, including support available from CITB. This could be practical support, assisting employers with completing paperwork, or financial support, with a breakdown of how to claim funding for an apprentice.

National Apprenticeship Week is an annual week-long celebration and promotion of apprenticeships. Now in its 15^th year, the event aims to bring businesses wanting apprentices together with people looking to learn a trade through opportunities such as the stone industry’s Trailblazer* apprenticeship.

The title of this year’s Apprenticeship Week is ‘Build the Future’.

The construction sector is facing some major challenges ahead, including the need to recruit an additional 217,000 workers by 2025 to replace the ageing workforce and those who leave the industry, and meet the demand for construction work.

Apprenticeship Week places greater emphasis on apprenticeships as an important way the construction industry can secure a pipeline of future talent.

The CITB’s report Rethinking Recruitment encourages employers to consider recruiting apprentices from a wider talent pool than has perhaps traditionally been the case, increasing the diversity of the industry.

If you are thinking of employing an apprentice, you might to look at the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) guidance for employers of young people and apprentices. Click here to see the relevant part of the HSE website. 

* There are currently three colleges in England offering the stone industry Trailblazer apprenticeship. They all have comprehensive information on their websites and welcome questions regarding all aspects of their training, including funding. They have dedicated apprenticeship officers who will answer any questions you have, so it is useful to contact the colleges as the first part of your search.

Bath college, Somerset. www.bathcollege.ac.uk/study-with-us/apprenticeships

Building Crafts College, London. www.thebcc.ac.uk/category/stonemasonry

York college, Yorkshire. www.yorkcollege.ac.uk/study/stonemasonry-apprenticeship-level-2

Another source of useful information regarding apprenticeships is Go Construct. Its website offers information on finding an apprentice, finding an employer and provides useful links on funding.

All the information you will need regarding your eligibility for Government support with funding apprentices can be found at www.gov.uk/employing-an-apprentice/get-funding.

A company that is CITB-registered is entitled to a grant in addition to any grant aid from Government. Currently grants available include a £2,500 a year attendance grant and an additional achievement grant of £3,500 on completion of an apprenticeship.

CITB also funds up to 80% of (reasonable) accommodation and travel expenses for apprentices. You can find out about this funding at www.citb.co.uk/levy-grants-and-funding/grants-funding/apprenticeship-travel-and-accommodation-funding-travel-to-train.

If any stone company wants more information or help on training issues they can contact Claire Wallbridge, the training officer of the Natural Stone Industry Training Group, at claire@nsitg.org.uk.

Another intiative expected to roll out across the country is the Try a Trade Programme that started trialling in 16 Schools in the West Midlands in the autumn last year. The aim is to give youngsters preparing to leave school the chance to find out about and experience working in industries where apprenticeships are available to help prepare them for their working life ahead.

A 56.5m ‘halo’ of marble commemorating the victims of a suicide bomber at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena was revealed in January. Here, Hardscape and IP Surfaces talk about their making of the memorial.

Precision and attention to detail. They were the vital ingredients Hardscape and its sister company IP Surfaces brought to the project to create the Carrara marble Glade of Light memorial to the 22 people who died in a terrorist attack at Manchester Arena on 22 May 2017. The victims included six children under 16, the youngest just eight.

The memorial will be officially opened later this year, on the anniversary of the atrocity, when the hawthorn tree in the centre of the ‘halo’ of marble should be full of white blossom and some of the flowers in this extension of the Cathedral Gardens will be in bloom.

However, the memorial was revealed in January when the construction and planting were completed and the fence around the site was removed.

The memorial is all the more powerful for its apparent simplicity, but as every stonemason knows, the simpler the line the more accurate it has to be. There is nowhere for errors to hide.

That’s why Hardscape wanted to take responsibility itself for the construction of the memorial on site. The 26 pieces of marble that form the two sections of the ‘halo’ were shaped and inscribed with the names of the victims at IP Surfaces, the company established by Hardscape founder Mathew Haslam to add lettering, inlays and other artistic elements in a variety of materials to hard landscaping. (You can read more about IP Surfaces here.)

Manchester City Council, the clients on this project, ran a competition for the design of the memorial, which was won by landscape architect BCA Landscape.

It is an indication of the importance and standing of the memorial that BCA Landscape Director Andy Thomson was interviewed by the Architects Journal, in which he is quoted as saying: “It was both a great honour and a great responsibility to win the competition to design this memorial... Set within the wild beauty of the planting is the simplicity of a circle, that references the infinite and the eternal carved in Bianco di Carrara marble.”

It had already been decided to extend the park in the Medieval Quarter at the western end of Manchester Cathedral Gardens before the bombing incident. The route had become a cut-through that Manchester City Council wanted to close.

Galliford Try had been chosen as the main contractor and Hardscape had been chosen by landscape architect Planit-IE to supply the stone for the garden. Planit-IE had worked with Hardscape before and Partner Lindsay Humblet says: “We always get 110% service from them because they’re passionate about what they do.”

Planit-IE wrote the specification for the competition for the memorial, it having been felt a third party should design it. When BCA Landscape won the competition, it was an easy decision to stick with Hardscape to produce it because BCA had also previously worked with Hardscape on a number of successful projects.

The team involved in the project visited eight quarries in Carrara, Tuscany, before deciding on the particular marble they wanted, which needed to be technically sound to offer the least amount of movement as well as being aesthetically pleasing.

BCA wanted the marble slabs to be bookmatched. As Andy Thomson told AJ: “This creates a beautiful effect within the marbled surface that also mimics the bilateral symmetry that we see in nature and is particularly evident in the ephemeral moment of a passing butterfly.”

By the time the slabs were being cut, Covid restrictions had begun and the decisions on individual slabs were made using remote digital assets via the internet. Each slab weighed 2.3tonnes.

Once the slabs arrived with Hardscape in the UK, the team came to inspect them and BCA chose precisely where the cuts would be made for bookmatching.

In the centre of each of the joining edges is a semicircle, which is to accommodate a ‘memory capsule’, containing whatever the bereaved felt was appropriate to commemorate the deceased. These are capped by bronze lids with marble inlays and central bronze hearts.

The bereaved were invited two-to-three families at a time to bring their memory items to the memorial to insert into the capsules. Once the objects had been inserted the memory capsules had to be sealed using the bronze and marble lids. One of Hardscape’s team was always on hand so the bereaved could see them being sealed, precisely, with dignity and respect.

The names of the deceased are also written in the stone, with the inscription being cut by waterjet into the marble and filled with brass inserts.

There are bronze dividers between each of the slabs that, like the memory capsule lids, stick up proud of the surface. This is largely to discourage skateboarders from damaging the memorial.

The joints were also further complicated by there being a slight fall on the marble surface to stop water pooling on it. The joints had to accommodate the fall, hence they were cut on a waterjet to achieve the compound angle required.

The marble has been sealed with Tenax Stoneline 81 to protect it and make it easier to keep clean.

As well as the memorial itself, Hardscape also continued to provide the paving for the rest of the garden. There was York stone paving already on part of the site, which has been re-used. In order for new paving to match that, Hardscape sourced newly quarried York stone from Johnsons Wellfield Quarries.

There are 1,300m² of 150mm x 300mm x 80mm sandstone paving, half of it with the top face shot sawn and the other half diamond sawn, interspersed with a total of 30m² of the same stone with a pattern etched into it that evokes the medieval architecture of the Cathedral.

The main paths are edged with Portuguese granite and the gardens include glacial boulders that Hardscape sourced from Wales. It also provided granite ends for  wooden benches.

Mathew Haslam, the founder of Hardscape and its Managing Director, is understandably proud of the whole project and moved by the poignancy of the memorial.

He told NSS: “It’s a great example of what stone can achieve; how you can manipulate it to achieve a design intention for a particular location, and the awesome energy it can bring to a project.

“What has been achieved here has received the sort of recognition that is usually reserved for a building. It has all the ingredients of what I stand for and what the team here assists me in achieving on an hour-by-hour basis. I’m very proud of our part in this project.”

When the slabs arrived in the UK, they were inspected by the design team and the decision made about how exactly the bookmatching would be cut. Once the slabs were cut and inscribed, Hardscape took control of installation to ensure the same level of accuracy was achieved as had been required for making them.

Nationwide hard landscaping materials supplier London Stone has added a sixth director to its board with the appointment of Diana Catrinoi-Cornea ACIM as Marketing Director. 

Diana joined the business as an Admin Assistant in 2016, and now takes full responsibility for London Stone’s marketing, e-commerce and web development departments.

Alongside her full-time role at London Stone, Diana has attended further education and training to develop her skills and experience in the world of marketing and in doing so has achieved a Level 6 Diploma in Digital Marketing as well as becoming an Associate of The Chartered Institute of Marketing (ACIM).