British Stone

["Scott Engering" <Scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sky

It might be a good idea to get hold of a copy of the Natural Stone Directory
 from:

Herald House Ltd
96 Dominion Road
Worthing
West Sussex
BN14 8JP

Tel: 01903 602100

This lists the major suppliers of stone and has photographs of many of
these. Whereabouts is your sculptor based? This may affect the cost and ease
of getting hold of the material. If near London, you might be able to see
the Triton Building Stone Library where you can see 120+ different varieties
laid out  side by side (I devised this for ease of comparison of both colour
and texture specifically to match stone for the repair of historic stone
buildings) but you would need to discuss this with me first. I am not a
sculptor (I'm a building stone consultant), so don't have direct experience
of the particular tooling characteristics but I do have a good knowledge of
the different colours and textures that are available from around the UK and
their general physical properties.

White: Portland stone or Beer stone (both limestones but latter is of
limited availability).

White/Cream: Ancaster hard white, 'Bath' stone, Clipsham and Ketton (oolitic
limestones).

Buff with/without iron banding. Medium/coarse sandstones from Derbyshire,
Yorkshire and the north-east.

Red sandstones. Locharbriggs, Corsehill, Red Lazonby (not as hard as the
above).

Green/blue/buff/red & multicoloured medium grained sandstone from the Forest
of Dean, Gloucestershire.

Granites. Grey and pink/red varieties from Cornwall and Scotland.

Green volcanic slate from the English Lake District. This material is my
particular favourite. This is not primarily known for its use for sculpting,
but I know of works that have been completed. Olive/sea green in colour with
very attractive banding and grain size variation preserved. (It is a
metamorphosed volcanic ash which was originally deposited in water and
contains ripple marks, distinctive bedding patterns, sedimentary structures
etc).

The UK possesses a vast range of materials.

You can contact me at scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for further details.

Scott

----- Original Message -----
 From: Sky Higgins