Come to Cloburn for your next construction project!

The Triangle, Swindon, with Gabion Walls.

If you’re looking for great quality construction materials for your next project, look no further than Cloburn Quarry. We’re famous for our red aggregate, which is popular all over Europe and the rest of the world, but we can also supply you with a wide range of excellent quality construction materials for your projects.
Some of the great products we have on offer include:

75mm Crusher Run – this is our all in 75mm down crushed granite product. It’s the biggest one we have in stock, but if you need anything bigger, just ask and we can source it for you. To use it, it needs to be laid no less that 125mm deep so that it can be compacted into an excellent quality load bearing body. You can also top it with our Type 1 sub base or the 10mm down Type 2.

Type 1 Sub-Base – This industry standard sub-base has a wide variety of applications. It’s a minus 35mm crushed and graded material, fully compliant with government and road authority specifications.

Type 2 sub-base – This sub-base is perfect for commercial car parks, and if an extra shot of decoration is needed, you could always use some of our attractive red granite Firechip™ for a deep red colour.
Scalpings – If you don’t need to use a certified product, this could be the product for you. Scalpings are a cost effective hard rock solution - a minus 30mm graded product.

Gabion Stone – Looking for filler for Gabion wire baskets or other projects? A staple for retaining walls, Gabion can also be used in hard landscaping and features. This type of stone was even used in The Triangle project in Swindon, featured in Kevin's Grand Design Programme on Channel 4. These crushed red granite mini blocks are perfect for the job at 200mm x 100mm

Type B filter stone – This type of aggregate is normally used by farmers and contractors to enhance the performance of field drains. Land drainage can help to combat waterlogging in fields and gardens, but it’s not the same as a soakaway, even though they are both used to disperse surface and/or ground water Size wise, ours is a 20mm – 12mm aggregate.

Pipe bedding –  this is a fine, protective aggregate that can be put into ditches and trenches to safely surround pipework, cables and ducts to guard them from damage. Our pipe bedding is also a bright red colour, making it an excellent safety feature and giving anyone who’s operating an excavation vehicle warning that they are close to pipe tracks.

Speak to us about anything you need for your construction projects and we’ll be delighted to help.

Hampden Stadium ready for the Commonwealth Games

With the Commonwealth Games taking place this month, we’re relieved to hear that Hampden Stadium, which was once Scotland’s national football stadium, is now ready for the event which starts on 23 July.

Hampden Park venue will be the focal point for the event, which lasts for seven days. The Games will involve almost 50 track and field disciplines, which will be competed by more than 1,000 athletes.

We were interested in how the transformation from football to athletics stadium took place, especially as we supply our own sports surfacing product, the popular Cloburn Red Granite Cresta™. To transform the stadium, eight rows of seats were removed, and the surface was raised around two metres so that it had the correct dimensions for an athletics track.

Contractors then added an infield with freshly-cut grass, which has been placed on a temporary deck. The deck is a construction masterpiece which consists of a whopping 1,000 base panels which are supported by over 6000 steel stilts.

Glasgow 2014 Chief executive David Grevemberg was impressed with the work when he visited at the end of last month.  He told reporters;

"The spectacular transformation of Hampden Park from iconic football stadium to world-class athletics venue is an achievement of which Glasgow and Scotland can be justifiably proud.

"The completion of Hampden marks a very special moment in our journey to the starting line of what will be the biggest and best sporting festival Scotland has ever hosted."

It needed to be impressive of course; the crowd is expected to top 40,000 and organisers expect the Games to be watched by more than one billion people around the world.

The new track was tested by Team Scotland athlete Eilish McColgan who spoke about her excitement at hearing the ‘Hampden Roar’ from the Scottish athletics fans.

"Having the 'Hampden Roar' behind me as I push down the home straight will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I can't wait to give it my all and do my very best."

The running tracks will be relocated once the Games have closed, giving even more Scottish athletes a chance to train on a landmark track, and providing a legacy of the 2014 Games.

We know that everyone, whether competing in an International event or playing football for the school team, wants their sporting experience to be a good one – and Cloburn’s Red Granite Cresta™ is a popular solution for tennis courts, running tracks and football pitches.

What makes Cloburn so special?

Cloburn Quarry is special in itself; rock has been commercially extracted here since 1896 - originally to provide track ballast for new railway lines.

Cloburn Quarry Limited was established in 1982, and we’ve been working hard ever since to provide the products that people really want, rather than the products we think we can sell.

We came to the business with absolutely no preconceptions about how a quarry should be run, and researched the industry thoroughly to find out what was needed, what the best equipment for the task was, and how to sell our specially-created product ranges. As a result, we’re now proud owners of a truly individual quarrying company, producing unique products that people really want, and using specialist plant equipment, some of which isn’t found anywhere else in the UK.

Where we’ve really turned the business on its head is by designing and creating specific products to meet consumer and business needs, rather than just figuring out ways to market by-products of the granite products we already quarry. For example, our Granitsand isn’t simply left over sand from the quarrying process, like traditional bedding sand, but in fact it’s a completely new product that’s manufactured specifically for a need we’ve pinpointed in the construction market.

Most bedding sands are soft, pliable and of course very easy to source. It’s been a standard product sold for many years, but we didn’t want to simply carry on producing a product that had well known disadvantages; yes it was easy to use due to its pliability, but that pliability also meant a loss of durability. We knew there was a demand for a strong, hard bedding sand type product made specifically from hard rock which would provide long-lasting results.

We’re constantly researching new products, and the market, so that we keep on top of construction news and trends, and listen to our customers’ needs. It’s one of the reasons for our success and keeps everything fresh and interesting for us – and for the members of staff who’ve been with us since we started.

We’ve had team members at Cloburn since day one, and we think this incredibly low turnover is another reason for our success.  Our whole team lives and breathes the Cloburn ethos, and works hard to carry the business forward.