Quarrying

Quarrying stone is an art that requires an eye for the rock and its structure. Our long experience has taught us the importance of feeling our way through the rock, and seeing how it changes as we slowly but surely go deeper.

Our aim is to extract stone blocks that are as large and of as high quality as possible. 

The methods we use are guided by circumstances, but we usually begin by blasting or sawing out a primary block. The block is generally around 8 metres high, 12 metres deep and 30 metres wide. The primary block, which weights almost 8 000 tonnes, is then divided into more manageable smaller blocks.

Processing

A typical block weighs about 10 tonnes and is brought up out of the quarry using a wheel loader. Each block is inspected by an experienced stonemason, and is then split by sawing or wedging in such a way as to make as many high-quality blocks as possible. Each block is then classified according to our criteria, labelled and moved to a storage site ready for transport. 

Altogether we produce more than 80 000 tonnes of block stone every year, the majority of which is exported around the world.