Holker Group has unveiled a multi-million-pound investment in its Burlington Stone business, securing its future for decades to come

Walk around the Lake District and you’ll see the history and influence of one Cumbrian business everywhere.

The Burlington Stone business is 170 years old, but its stone and slate products quarried from a string of eight sites across South Cumbria have been 450 million years in the making.

Its Westmorland Green and Burlington blue-grey slate is seen on roofing and walling throughout the county. Less well known, is that if you end up in Dallas, Texas, you can take a tour of Lake District geology and Burlington craftsmanship there too.

“As you walk the streets of Dallas you are walking over the Cumbrian fells,” says Burlington managing director Richard Page.

“The paving in front of the Rolex building is beautiful Lakeland slate, there’s the iconic St Paul Place skyscraper with 40,000 square feet of hand-split Elterwater stone, and the headquarters of Hunt Oil. You'll find countless projects where you're literally walking on a piece of the Lake District. It's incredible.”

Burlington Stone is part of the Cavendish family’s Holker Group, based at Holker Hall, and following the recent acquisition of Burlington Aggregates, the newly created Burlington Construction Materials business accounts for “around half of Holker Group activity”, with a turnover of around £15 million and 110 employees, says group CEO Allen Gibb.

It exports between £1m and £2m a year of handcrafted stone products for statement architectural projects all over the world. In the UK you can see its distinctive slate on the roof of St Pancras Station, Manchester Town Hall, the Royal Courts of Justice, the Natural History Museum, on Tower Bridge and its beautiful stone is on the floor of Manchester Cathedral.

“Burlington Stone is a hugely important and successful part of the Holker Group,” says Allen.

“That’s why we are putting massive investment into the quarry’s reserves, new computerised machinery, and solar power. It’s protecting jobs and the legacy of the quarry, which is so important to the Cavendish family.”

“There’s not a lot we can't make out of Lakeland stone,” says Richard at the firm’s Kirkby Quarry showroom. “One of the guys in the factory told a visitor recently, if you can make it out of wood, we can make it out of slate, and he's right. They can they can pretty much craft anything out of slate.”

The business that became Burlington Stone was founded in 1843 by the second Earl of Burlington by Lord Cavendish’s great-great grandfather. Daughter Lucy McLaren, maintains the family role in the Holker Group business as Executive Director.

“Burlington Roofing is synonymous with the Lake District vernacular – the walling and the roofing,” says Richard. “If you look at the classic diminishing course roof, this doesn’t just look beautiful, it’s sustainable. It is borne out of the desire from the quarrymen of old to make roofing slate out of every piece of stone that came out of the quarries.

“So they'd make big roofing slates out of bigger pieces of clog and out of the smaller blocks they’d make smaller roofing slates. Nothing’s wasted. It's a very early form of sustainability.”

The quality and longevity of the product means that one of Burlington’s biggest competitors is actually second-hand Burlington products, says Richard.

“If you go on the web and you type in Burlington roofing slates or flagstones you'll find used Burlington products that were quarried here more than a hundred years ago. This is the complete opposite of the disposable culture of today. Burlington still produces products of beauty and longevity.”

Richard joined Burlington Stone in 2021 after 34 years’ experience in construction materials and minerals. Beginning as a technician at his local quarry in Leicestershire he rose to senior industry positions across the United Kingdom.

He says his mission is to maintain Burlington’s pre-eminence as the most prestigious manufacturer of a unique range of British natural slates and stones.

This autumn the business unveiled a multi-million-pound investment in its Kirkby Quarry and acquired the remaining part of its 50% stake in Barrow-based Burlington Aggregates from Neil Price Construction Services.

The acquisition doubles the size of the business to form one of the largest independently owned construction materials groups in the North West.

The other half of the Holker Group, based at the Cavendish family home of Holker Hall, employs around 190 people across its numerous businesses and the 17,000-acre Holker Estate. It opens Holker Hall to the public, and operates Cartmel Racecourse, two luxury holiday parks in South Lakeland, a portfolio of residential housing, Holbeck Homes residential developers, a 900-acre in-hand arable farm and 12,000 acres of tenanted farmland.

It’s this diversity that is a key strength of the Group, says chief executive Allen. “Burlington is fundamentally important to Holker Group, but it’s the breadth and variety of our portfolio that helps de-risk us from economic turbulence,” he says.

A further £300,000 has been invested at Kirkby Quarry in modern, computer-controlled ‘CNC’ machinery, and a £250,000 on solar panels which will deliver one third of the business’s electricity needs.

Richard says: “We are using CNCs in ways that fit with Burlington’s values. We will never come away from the high levels of craftsmanship and hand-finished quality of our products that we are renowned for. It’s to supplement the craft element, not replace it.

“The CNCs will enable us to carry out some more complex, for example, radial cut patterns. Rather than templating and manually cutting out, being able to automate part of that process makes a lot of sense for us, without compromising quality.”

Meanwhile the 890 solar panels, supplied and fitted to the quarry’s factory roofs by Carlisle-based Go Low Carbon, will generate 275,000 kWh of electricity a year, nearly one third of the site’s annual consumption. Around 70% of the electricity generated will be used on site, with 30% sold back to the National Grid when supply exceeds demand.

The panels, covering 1,300 square metres of roofing, is expected to reduce the quarry’s carbon emissions by 38.6 tonnes year - as part of Holker Group’s strategy to significantly reduce its emissions across all its businesses over the next two decades.

While the business is growing and investing, Richard says the family ethos of the business remains.

“Three words that are really important for all the Holker Group businesses are people, place and pride. We are very much of this place, of South Cumbria; we take the stewardship of the land incredibly seriously

“There is a respect for tradition and exceptional craftsmanship, and we have a lot of longstanding employees. Many generations of the same family have worked for us - people are proud to work for the business and for the Cavendish family.”

Lucy McLaren says: “This is an exciting development that will take the business forward and safeguard jobs. The Cavendish family and Holker Group have a long and proud history of supporting industry and business in South Cumbria and this investment opens up another exciting chapter for us.”