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JORDANS MINE OPEN DAY

Saturday 5th June 2010
9am-1pm

On Saturday 5th June 2010, Albion Stone's Mine Manager, Mark Godden, and the Assistant Mine Manager, Tony Booker, will be taking small groups of people right into the Mine, through the galleries and up to the working faces.

They will give explanations for the reasons for Mining not Quarrying as well as new changes to the extraction methods that have been needed, such as the Fantini Cutting Machine (which is a giant track mounted diamond bladed chainsaw), also Hydrobags (which are incredibly strong, water filled, steel pillows that are used to gently heave stone from its natural bed).

Albion Stone have also had to very carefully monitor the roof and walls to ensure there are no movements, details of this very accurate measuring process can be explained during the visit, together with the unique geology of the island.

Albion Stone previously ran a successful open day at Bowers Mine in 2003.  Mining has developed since that day and the Mining Team at Albion Stone would like to show local members of the public the excellent work they've completed and to explain why they believe this is future for extraction on Portland.

Should you wish to attend, please call our Portland office on 01305 860369 to book a place

Entry is free, however donations of £2 per person to the 'Portland Community Partnership' would be much appreciated
The day will start from 9am and run until 1pm.

You will need to be given PPC, if you already own your own protective boots please bring them along

Prince Charles meets Albion Stone

Albion Stone's Operations Director Tony Porter met Prince Charles as he tried his hand at stone carving on a visit to his dream development in Poundbury.
He chiselled a piece of Portland stone on a trip to open the new Weymouth College Construction and Training Centre.
The Prince gave the new centre the royal seal of approval. He led guests on a walk around the development and handed over keys for a new van to the Dorset branch of the Samaritans.
As well as turning his hand to masonry on a tour of the construction centre workshop, he chatted to stone masonry students.
Lecturer Richard Mortimer then handed the prince a pair of safety spectacles for him to have a go at carving a slab, using a steel dummy and letter cutting chisel.
Mr Mortimer said: "He did really well, he picked the chisel up and just went straight into it. He didn't hold back at all. I asked if he had done it before and he said he had had a little go."
As the prince unveiled a plaque to mark the official opening of the centre, he said: "It is an enormous delight for me to be able to see this new centre, which I have watched rising from the ground on various visits to Poundbury. As somebody who cares deeply about the development of skills and talent and bringing the potential of people to the fore, I couldn't be more pleased to see what is happening here."
Prince Charles also joked: "The only thing I have been able to do is make a complete fool of myself when having a go. It makes me even more appreciative of the amazing skill that is needed to do this sort of work."

The Duke of Gloucester Awards 2009

The Worshipful Company of Masons

The Masons' Company is one of the City of London's oldest livery companies with records dating back to 1356. It was formed to safeguard the welfare of its members and to regulate the craft of stonemasonry, so that standards could be properly maintained.

Today The Masons' Company is active in the support of the craft by sponsoring students and apprentices in approved courses in masonry and stone carving and it is keen to foster, encourage and reward stonemasons in the early years of their development.

Improver Mason Award

The Worshipful Company of Masons introduced an Award in 2007 in honour of HRH The Duke of Gloucester, who has been a liveryman of The Worshipful Company of Masons since 1975 and an honorary member of its Court since 1995. Through his architectural background, The Duke of Gloucester has a keen interest in the construction industry, our national heritage and in the training of craftsmen in the industry.

The Awards will be made to qualified stonemasons who have achieved NVQ Level 3 in stonemasonry and have since developed their masonry skills.

They will have worked for a period of between three and five years in a mason's yard in order to develop their craft.  The traditional term for this period is "improver mason".  The Award will be given to the masons who have demonstrated in their everyday work a high degree of skill in masonry or the carving of stone and considerable improvement since NVQ Level 3.

Commended Damien Briggs
Employer Albion Stone Plc
College Weymouth College

Damien says " I was involved in various projects including setting out, making moulds and a big restoration project in Guernsey.  I then started with Albion Stone in the quarry where I have stayed for the last 3 years.  I like working for Albion Stone Plc because the work can vary so much.  One day you can be doing a simple return and other days some nice carving work comes in, but I would say the

highlight since being a banker has got to be my capital for Wentworth and a plaque for the Gurkhas' Memorial in Kent.  I just feel so lucky and privileged to have the opportunity to do these nice jobs and build up a good range of experience that most masons my age haven't got".

SkillBuild National Final Competition

One of Albion Stone's Masons, Steven Woodward, he narrowly missed first prize and came 2nd in the 'SkillBuild National Final Competition' last week.

SkillBuild is Britain's biggest and best construction skills competition, which encourages young apprentices to compete to be the best in their field.

In the last six months, apprentices from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have competed in regional heats and the best have been picked to compete in the National Final, which will be held at South Lanarkshire College, East Kilbride.

110 young people successfully passed to the final stages of the competition and competed to become the best in:

- Painting and decorating
- Stonemasonry
- Bricklaying
- Carpentry
- Joinery
- Cabinet making
- Plastering
- Wall and floor tiling
- Roof slating and tiling

The competition took place in Glasgow on 6th - 9th October 2009.

Architectural Student Design Award 2009

STONE BENCH COMPETITON

The City of London Corporation, the Cathedral Works Organisation (CWO), Albion Stone Plc and the Mason's Company are working closely together to promote and encourage young innovative architectural design and stone masonry skills by co-sponsoring a competition to design a seating form.

Four finalists have been chosen for their Riverside Walk seating design.  Architecture students Priscilla Fernandes, Yakim Milev, Barney Bonner and Richard Phillips were selected from 19 others who sent in their designs for the London location as part of the Architecture Student Design Award 2009.

The competition was designed to provide an opportunity for selected trainee masons to develop their stone masonry skills. Students were asked to:
- Produce a striking, innovative 21st century seat design, which can be carved from a single block of quarried natural stone (3m³), with or without slabbing and jointing
- Enhance its setting and complement the Riverside Walk
- Be visually engaging, functionally useful and well crafted
- Consider long-term performance characteristics, such as weathering, safety and ease of maintenance
- Take account of skateboard prevention measures

It will be located on The Riverside Walk, which is part of the Thames Path, extends from Victoria Embankment to Tower Pier on the north side of the River Thames. The City of London's Riverside Walk Enhancement Strategy is aimed at creating a high quality riverside walk to provide both a public and private space in a coherent manner.

The finalists will present their designs to the judging panel in September.  The panel consists of Deputy Christine Cohen OBE - Chairman of Planning and Transportation Committee (City of London Corporation), Michael Poultney (Albion Stone), Adam Stone - master mason (CWO), Julian Limentani (Mason's Company) Victor Callister (Planning and Transportation Department, City of London Corporation), Martin Rodman (Open Spaces Department, City of London Corporation) and Sam Dawkins & Donna Walker (previous winners).

The winning design is to be carved by apprentice Stone Masons from CWO during October and November and will be located adjacent to London Bridge.  The bench will be unveiled by the Lord Mayor of the City of London on 3 December 2009.

Key:
1. Yakim Milevs design
2. Barney Bonner's design
3. Priscilla Fernandes' Design
4. Richard Phillips' design

July 09 - GURKHA MEMORIAL

Albion Stone supplied over 3m³ of Jordans Basebed and Jordans Whitbed in the form of treads risers, paving and memorial stones.

Gurkhas have been part of the British Army for almost 200 years and are handpicked from a fiercely-contested recruitment contest in Nepal to win the right to join. They have seen combat all over the world, with 200,000 fighting in the two world wars.

The Memorial was officially unveiled at a service held on 11th June 2009.

36 Engineer Regiment is part of 3 (UK) Division and are based in Maidstone at Invicta Park Barracks. The Regiment consists of a Headquarters Squadron, 2 Field Squadrons and a Field Support Squadron.

- 50 Headquarter Squadron
- 20 Field Squadron
- 69 Gurhka Field Squadron
- 70 Gurhka Field Support Squadron

SJ Clewley MBE said: "I would just like to take this time to say a massive thank you on behalf of the officers and soldiers here at 36 Engineer Regiment. The standard of workmanship and stone for our new memorial is absolutely outstanding."

June 09 - Quarry & Mine Manager gets BSc (Hons) in Geosciences

Our Quarry & Mine Manager, Mark Godden, has just completed his Degree, BSc (Hons) in Geosciences and achieved a 2:1. 

It took Mark seven years of studying with the Open University to complete the Degree.  His graduation was on Saturday 30th May 2009 at Ely in Cambridgeshire.  The degree will help Mark in his job as it has both geological and environmental science facets to it.

April 09 - Restoration of The Monument, London

The Monument, one of the City of London's most outstanding landmarks and visitor attractions, has recently undergone a programme of improvements and repairs.

The £4.5 million project, funded by the City of London Corporation, involved the cleaning and repair of the Monument's stonework and the re-gilding of its famous golden orb.

Completed in 1677, Sir Christopher Wren's flame-topped Monument to the Great Fire of 1666, stands 202 ft high and is positioned 202 ft from the spot in Pudding Lane on which the Great Fire is believed to have started.

Repairs to The Monument have been carried out approximately every hundred years, with work last undertaken in 1888.  Work started in July 2007 and The Monument re-opened to visitors in February 2009.

Albion Stone supplied blocks of Jordans Whitbed stone for the restoration work.  This was carried out by Cathedral Works Organisation (Chichester) Ltd, who successfully completed the relocation of Temple Bar in 2004 for the City of London Corporation.

Dec 08 - Natural Stone Awards 2008

Albion Stone won two 'Awards' at the 14th Natural Stone Awards
ceremony at the Oval Cricket Ground in London.

The first award was won for the Armed Forces Memorial for the
'Design & Technology Innovation' Award.

The Memorial is a stunning piece of architecture being formed of a
circular structure 43 meters in diameter formed by curved Portland
Stone walls.

Albion Stone provided over 250 cubic metres of the finest quality
Portland Bowers Basebed for the panels. To meet the Architect's design
criteria, these panels all needed to be 1,125mm & 1,350mm high,
which involved opening a new section of the quarry to ensure they kept
a consistent supply of high blocks. These blocks were slabbed at
Albion's factory ready for shipment to McConnell's works in Northern
Ireland for letter carving. This was done by computer controlled
machines and proved a complicated process to ensure a consistent
depth to the individual letters on the curved sections of the stone.
There were so many letters to carve that it would've taken most of the
available Memorial Masons in the UK years to complete.

The second was awarded for St Paul's Cathedral South Churchyard
Improvements for the 'Landscaping' Award.

While the most important objective for this work was to provide
wheelchair access to the Cathedral, the resulting desire to re-enclose
this section of the churchyard presented the opportunity for a more
meaningful display of the medieval remains of the building that was
there before the Great Fire of 1666.

21m2 of Albion Stone's Portland Jordans Basebed Limestone has been
used to create seating areas that reinforce the other side of the
medieval cloister walk.

Sept 08 - Jordans Mine Opens!

Following the successful planning application and the signing of the
Unilateral Undertaking, Albion's mining team have begun constructing
the entrance to Jordans Mine. This Mine will provide 10 years of
Whitbed and Basebed but will also allow Portland's Red Triangle Cricket
Club to continue to use the surface, unaffected by the extraction
operation. This new mine will provide a boost to the production as the
high level of demand continues, despite the concerns in the property
industry and the wider economy.

Mark Godden, Albion Stone's Mine Manager said:
"The geology of the Portland Stone varies slightly across the Island but
the solid Cap Stone above the dimension stone that we seek to extract,
provides the ideal roof to all the mines.

We have to be particularly sensitive in this location as the land outside
the mine is a 'Site of Special Scientific Importance' and we have worked
closely with Natural England. Through a new management agreement
we have agreed to fund some clearance of the invasive cotoneaster
shrub that will allow the rare butterfly food plants to flourish.
Many local residents have been interested in our project and supportive of this mining method of extraction. We are considering arranging an open day in the Spring for local people once we have some tunnels extracted."

The Planning Committee's 'Report of the Director for Environment'
says:

"As members will appreciate there is a long history of quarrying
Portland's nationally important limestone and the City of London would
look significantly different without it. A large planning permission that
covers around a third of Tophill was granted after the Second World
War, mainly for the purposes of post war reconstruction. The area of
this proposed mine is within this old quarrying permission."

"The proposal to mine this area minimises the impact on the
conservation area and on the listed buildings. The proposed access road is situated within an existing quarry and landscape and away from the sensitive properties so as not to affect the settings of the listed
buildings or the conservation area. The Portal location is in the base of
the existing quarry so it would not be visible other than by looking over
the quarry edge."

"In conclusion I believe this proposal will allow a small but valuable
source of stone to be won in a much more acceptable environmental
manner than the existing quarrying consent would allow. The applicants
are to be congratulated for the initiative they have taken in pioneering
this form of winning a naturally important stone and I recommend that
the Committee continue its support for this approach."

Grant Neven, Club Secretary for Portland's Red Triangle Cricket Club says:
"Portland Red Triangle Cricket Club have throughout the planning of
Jordans Mine, been fully consulted and informed of developments by
Albion Stone. In fact Albion Stone have helped the club with
sponsorship towards its new boundary fence and have continued to
sponsor and retain close relations with the club. The club look forward
to Albion Stone once again sponsoring the club in 2009."

June 08 -
Albion Stone plc - Isle of Portland Quarries

Albion Stone plc has quarried the lands of Portland for many years and
has always taken a sympathetic approach to the Island and the local
people, many of whom play an important role in the works carried out.
The company has pioneered the extraction of Portland Stone using
mining rather than quarrying techniques. Inmosthay is the final quarrying site as more and more extraction goes underground. Underground extraction eliminates any disturbance to the surface wildlife.

Three year 'Habitat Management Plans' are currently being prepared
with Natural England, 'Recommendations for Jordans Quarry and
Inmosthay Quarry South'. These plans set out clear guidelines for the
work that Albion Stone will fund that will significantly improve the
botanical interest of these important sites.

Work is spread over a period of approximately three years, including
herbicide treatment of cotoneaster and dense scrub patches and the
creation of bare ground for the 'pioneer calcareous grassland
community'. Detailed below are some extracts of the Management Plan
prepared by Natural England:

"The stumps of cut scrub will be treated with an herbicide approved by
Natural England. Cut and pulled scrub will be burned at agreed burn
sites located on areas where dense scrub has previously been removed.
Dense scrub will not be undertaken in the bird breeding season (end of
March to end of August) should nests be discovered, work in the vicinity will be halted"

Natural England and Albion Stone are aware that failure to complete this
work could have potentially serious implications, "butterfly colonies at
Jordans and Inmosthay Quarries are now being threatened, principally
from the spread of non native cotoneaster and butterfly bush". Albion
Stone plc work very hard to ensure the wildlife living in the quarries is
protected.

Despite the careful work being carried out, as approved by Natural
England, it has been noted that "the regular use of motorbikes within
the units is likely to damage the special interest features and should be
discouraged". Albion Stone have also taken measures to discourage flytipping on the sites.