Sussex Stone Marble & Granite

Our showroom at Broadoak Garden Centre has many displays from tiles and cleaners to under floor heating systems. We have imported the slabs ourselves and carry out the manufacturing process at our factory sited locally. We aim to please and if we don’t have what you are looking for we will do our best to acquire it on your behalf through the contacts we have both here and abroad.

We consider ourselves to be competitive and aim to provide you with the highest level of service, the sort we’d expect as a customer ourselves! Our staff can advise you on the whole process from consultation through to aftercare. We pride ourselves on our work and take time to ensure the smallest details are covered. We can also help you find reliable local tradesmen such as plumbers/electricians and tilers who we can recommend with confidence, they understand our work ethic and have been chosen because of the high standard of work they produce.

As a building material natural stone is unrivalled in warmth, lasting resilience and unyielding strength. From the earliest marble, granite and limestone slabs to the most detailed mosaic tiling, stone has played a vital role in construction, architecture, and interior design throughout history. Many people still believe that only the wealthy can include stone in their building and decorating schemes but using modern technology we can easily cut the cost of stone purchase and installation without compromising on quality or design. Natural Stone always adds an element of grandeur to any location and its variety in pattern and colour ensure there is something to suit everyone’s taste.

Granite is an extremely tough, durable rock composed primarily of three different minerals. These minerals are easy to see due to their different colours. The white mineral grains found in granite are feldspar. It is the most abundant mineral found in granite. The light grey, glass-like grains are quartz, and the black, flake-like grains are biotite or black mica. Granites are formed into in two main groups veined and not veined, when granite is veined minerals from stripes of colour different from the background colour, these are distributed randomly across the slab giving the appearance of curved movement. Not veined usually consists of a base colour and 2-3 types of crystal whose colour and size vary slightly these types like Rosa Sardo ( white background, with grey/black and pink crystals) are quite consistent in their pattern.

Marble is a granular aggregate of crystals of calcite and sometimes dolomite, there is a huge variety of colours and characteristics depending on the quarry locations and country of origin. All marble was originally limestone and pure white in colour, the variations in the stone features are caused by the different sediments in the original deposits. Marble can be divided into 3 groups veined, not veined and breccias. The latter is different due to ovular inclusions in a basically uniform material.

Limestone is commonly beige in colour with variations from grey to yellow, it has a fine grain and because of its sedimentary origin it is not unusual to find small fossilized shells in it.

Travertine is a more calcareous material that due to its ease of use is a common building material, travertine can be found in various colours from light beige, brown and gold and even in red and silver. The classic image of travertine has distinct horizontal veining studded with holes formed by the loss of carbon dioxide at the moment of its geological formation. Commonly these holes are filled for esthetic reasons with either cement to compliment the colour or a clear epoxy resin to add prominence.

Slate is formed from very fine grained shale and clay deposits which settle in to layers under extreme temperature and pressure fluctuations. This creates the characteristic partings and grain distinctive of slate, this is known as its natural cleft and is ideal for use outdoors where a positive anti-slip finish is required. Slate also comes honed and tumbled. Common slate colours are black, green and grey they can also have elements of red and gold and even purple hues.