Quarry Visit

Gallagher’s Hermitage Lane Quarry is a few miles away from my studio in Maidstone, Kent and it was a great pleasure to be given a guided tour around the whole site the other day. The reason for the quarry visit was due to a new commission I am going to be working on soon, which will see me use the Kentish ragstone donated by Gallagher’s quarry for the production of 8 trophies for the Kent Design and Development Awards which recognises excellence in building and architecture across the county of Kent.

The tour was lead by the mason manager, Vince Tourle, a very experienced and knowledgeable mason. The sun was beating down as we descended down into the heart of the operations. It’s only when you are at this level you can really experience the rock strata’s and geological history of the land.

I have never really used the ragstone for anything other than small bases for sculptures and as it is a limestone it takes a wonderful polish. However, because of its thickness of bed it has never appealed to me as a stone for carving. The other possible reason that I may have been put off working the stone is because the term ‘rag’ is used to describe a stone that is very hard to work!! After being shown what Vince is producing and cutting at the moment on the jaw dropping saw in the quarry I was like a kid in a sweet shop. Not only was I thinking how I could use a variety of different sawn blocks of ragstone for the awards but also introducing larger dimension slabs into my studio and gallery sculptures!! I can’t wait to get some of the samples back and seeing how the stone can perform for me.

A Van Voorden Apollo 6 primary saw with a 3m diameter blade is installed at Hermitage Quarry. This enables 'sawn six sided' and ‘dimensional slab’ Kentish Ragstone to be supplied to stone masons. Carrying out the primary sawing in the quarry reduces transport costs, greatly reduces waste management at the stone mason’s works and enables the off-cuts to be put into the aggregate process.