Natural Stone · Sandstone
Sandstone supplier to the UK trade — walling, paving & cut-to-size.
Sandstone is the stone the British building tradition is written in — the buff and brown gritstones of the Pennines, and the Indian sandstones that have supplied the UK trade for a generation because they match that palette closely and come by the container. Karpat sources direct from the producer, wholesale to the UK trade, delivered duty-paid. Every order is matched to your tone, format and finish rather than sold from stock.
Character
Buff, brown, and naturally variegated
Sandstone reads warmer and more textured than limestone — a visible grain, a matte surface that weathers rather than polishes, and a tonal range that shifts piece to piece instead of running flat. Autumn Brown is a creamy brown carrying darker and lighter tones with touches of plum and grey; Rippon (Rippon Buff, Gardha Buff) sits closest to Yorkshire buff. Dholpur Beige, Camel Dust and Fossil Mint extend the range. Because the variegation is natural, the stone is already part-way to a mixed course before anyone dyes it — which is why merchants who age and dye their own stone buy it undyed.
Formats
Walling, paving, cut-to-size
Sandstone splits cleanly along the bed and saws well, so it serves both the walling trade and the paving trade from the same quarry. Coursed walling blocks, split face and tumbled; paving and setts; and cut-to-size work — cills, heads, jambs, quoins, copings and steps — where the value per tonne is higher and the specification is tighter. For course heights, bed depths, container yields and how we check a producer's loading figures, see our sandstone walling stone page.
Specifying it properly
Porosity is the question a UK wall asks.
Sandstone is more porous than marble or granite, and in a UK wall that is the specification that decides everything. Water absorption and freeze-thaw resistance vary widely between quarries, and between beds within one quarry, so the material has to be matched to the exposure rather than bought on colour. We obtain the producer's test data for the material offered — BS EN 13755 water absorption, BS EN 12371 freeze-thaw, and BS EN 771-6 for masonry units — together with a Declaration of Performance, before the material is offered rather than after.
Natural stone carries 0% import duty into the UK from any origin, so nothing in the price turns on where it was quarried. What does turn on origin is transit time and the producer's distance to the load port, and we disclose both.
How we source
Origin follows the product.
Turkey is where we buy marble, travertine, limestone and onyx, and it is not a sandstone country at the scale this product needs — so our sandstone comes from Rajasthan, loading at Mundra. We would rather tell you that plainly than let a Turkish address imply a Turkish quarry. Send the format, tone, finish and quantity; we approach the producers on your behalf, return comparative offers, and dispatch samples ahead of order confirmation.
Quote on sandstone.
Tell us the format, the tone and the quantity. We come back with producer offers and a delivered-UK estimate.
Request a sandstone quote →