From Quarry to Kitchen

Your granite worktops have taken an incredible journey that has taken millions of years to complete. Initially, time and pressure mixed in with a great deal of heat combined to form the very bedrock of the pre -quarried stone ,storing it ready to quarry millions of years later.

Granite Being Quarried

Landowners investigating their land will have noticed the properties of the stone beneath them and will have decided to quarry, initially on a small scale to establish whether or not the stone had any value to the commercial market. After all, the stone has to be pleasing to the eye as well as hardwearing for the quarry to be viable. There are millions of different coloured granites and only a small amount are highly prized, there are also millions of different granites sitting beneath the ground waiting to be discovered.

Once a site has been found, then quarrying can take place. Large machine are brought in to drill and cut the stone in large blocks to enable the stone to be moved from the quarry face. These large blocks are highly prized, yet only 10 percent is suitable for granite worktops, whereas the other 90 percent will be used for smaller building projects such as tiling or brick sized material.

Block Cutting Machines

The large blocks are set aside for inspection ready to sell to the processing factories. This will be the first time the raw material has left site and at this point is approximately 6 weeks away from being installed in kitchens throughout the world.

Special Machines cut the large blocks at the processing factories in to manageable sized slabs, where they are placed on a second machine for polishing. The machines used are very expensive and rely on fine grained diamonds to slowly polish the surface of the slab to a perfect mirror like finish. The slabs are packaged and placed in a steel container ready for shipping throughout the world.

Polished Slabs

Once in the UK, the slabs pass through customs and are transported by rail to destinations throughout the country. The last leg of the journey is by lorry, where they arrive at granite companies and are off loaded ready to be cut to size and installed in thousands of British households every day.