Where The Best UK Granite Comes From
Posted on 2nd February 2021 at 11:46
Consumers seeking to buy granite tops in the Watford area can enjoy some wonderful choice, but some will be curious enough to ask where exactly it all comes from.
Consumers seeking to buy granite tops in the Watford area can enjoy some wonderful choice, but some will be curious enough to ask where exactly it all comes from.
There are no granite quarries in Hertfordshire, but plenty of other places will come to mind. For example, Aberdeen in north-east Scotland is known as the ‘Granite City’, for its characteristic grey stone architecture built from material quarried in the region.
Aberdeen’s granite is sourced locally, with several quarries lying to the north of the city. But these are just a few of the many sources of the material in Scotland.
The most famous of these is on the small island of Ailsa Craig, which lies off the Ayrshire coast. Its common green, blue hone and red hone granite are the exclusive material of choice for curling stones used in competition, ensuring this rocky outcrop makes an appearance in every Winter Olympics.
There are also granite quarries in the west Highlands, inner Hebrides and the Lowlands.
Cumbria has a long history of mining and quarrying including coal, copper, lead, graphite and slate. Its granite quarries include the Shap Pink Granite quarry, with the material being used for prestigious buildings across the north of England.
North Wales is another much-mined area and it has 11 quarries. One of these is at Blaenau Ffestiniog, a town better known for once being the leading slate mining centre in the world.
The midlands may seem a less likely area to find granite as the region is mostly flat, apart from Derbyshire and the Marches, but there are four quarries in Leicestershire and two in Warwickshore.
However, the greatest concentration of slate mines in Britain is actually in Devon and Cornwall, with ten in the Dartmoor National Park and other major clusters in Cornwall on Bodmin Moor and around Falmouth.
So for anyone looking for British granite, there is a huge variety of choice, with different styles, colours and quality to be found in several different places..
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