At Bondgate Homes we take pride in using quality locally sourced materials for our properties including all our stone-built homes, which are built using sandstone sourced from Darney Quarry near Hexham, Northumberland.
Darney Sandstone is a Lower Carboniferous fine grained stone which is creamy white to buff in colour and has historically been used within many highly significant buildings throughout Northern England and Scotland and has a reputation for weathering excellently. Recently it has been used for restoration in The Royal Academy of Art in London, repair work to the Charles Rennie Mackintosh Glasgow School of Art, The St. Andrews University Music Centre new Build and is currently being supplied for the extension to The Scottish National Gallery in Princess Street Gardens along with its highly sustainable and efficient use in many new build housing schemes in Northumberland, including our own at Carter Dene and The Kilns.
The stone is drilled and split out of the quarry whereupon it is selected for colour and range. After selection the majority is sent directly into the processing works within yards of the quarry face at Darney for production of walling, whilst some is sent to Berwick for production of related masonry products like window cills, lintels, cornice, quoins, jambs and other masoned dressings. The walling production at Darney is carried out by a process of sawing the blocks as efficiently as possible into slabs (known as Scants) which are then fed into splitting (cropping) lines which creates the naturally split walling face on the stones. Once split they are then automatically fed into tumbling machines which take the sharpness off the freshly split stone and gives it a slightly aged appearance. The stone is blended to give the full range of naturally occurring classic Northumbrian colour to ensure that once weathered the Houses sit perfectly in their natural surroundings.
Darney Quarry is operated by Hutton Stone and directly employs 40 people locally across both of their sites (Darney and Berwick) along with many others indirectly.
A selection of our homes at The Kilns will be built using this locally sourced stone from Darney Quarry allowing for a traditional Northumbrian style.
The Kilns is an outstanding collection of 2, 3 and 4 bedroom primary residence homes, perfectly placed in the centre of Beadnell village on the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
