A BASINGSTOKE stonemasons has been recognised for it’s work in refurbishing part of one of London’s most famous stores.

Based in Kingsclere Road, stoneCIRCLE was commended at the recent Natural Stone Awards for its role in refurbishing the fine watch sales area of Harrods, in Knightsbridge.

Rundell Associates was the architect tasked with the project and chose to work with the Basingstoke firm to supply the stone fabrication involved.

The project was to manufacture and install curved quarter book matched marble panels to the walls and solid marble treads to create a new staircase positioned in an opening in the floor which links the two areas of the fine watch room.

The stone slabs needed to be sawn to different sizes to allow for the panels to curve around the walls of the ellipse in the floor.

The walls and stairs were modelled in 3D by stoneCIRCLE to ensure that these sizes were correctly calculated.

From the modelling, a cutting schedule detailing the thicknesses and sequence of each slab from the block was sent to Italy so that the block could be sawn. The slabs used at each end of the ellipse were thicker to allow for the tighter curves.

The approximate weight of the finished wall panels was 240 kg each and the individual treads were roughly 275kg, so for installation a ceiling scaffold had to be in place from which was suspended a gantry crane and a chain block hoist.

The work took two weeks to complete.Mike Rundell from Rundell Associates said “The sweeping staircase is a significant new architectural feature that we hope will be enjoyed by customers for years to come.”

The walls and tread supports were built by Jaysam in metsec to a drawing agreed with stoneCIRCLE.

The original time allowed for the installation was four weeks but the company was told that the scaffold and gantry were coming down and had to speed up the installation to have all of the treads and wall panels in place in four weeks.