Located in Ashington, at the back of the Shades of Green Garden Centre on Armstrong Way, visit Sure Stone Northern Ltd for a range of high-quality products including landscape ornaments, block paving,
reconstructed stone products, natural stone, decorative gravels, grit and rock salts for winter and decorative garden products.
A
reconstructed stone bridge connects the kitchen garden with the formal gardens and spans a medieval well that is reputed to be a pilgrims' stopping place.
Fossils of nautiloids (an ancestor of the giant squid) dug up during the building of the new centre are set into the floor of the building; a
reconstructed Stone Age roundhouse sits on the site of a crannog (a prehistoric dwelling built on an artificial island in a lake); and the reserve's spectacular new glass-sided bird observatory sits above lime kilns that provided many of the bricks that built Belfast.
Other eco-friendly places to stay include a solar-powered lodge and
reconstructed stone cottages overlooking the Atlantic Coast in Creevy, operated by a co-operative of local residents.
Then, bizarrely, you plunge into a case study of the restoration and maintenance of Cologne Cathedral, only to return to the book's central theme with short chapters on
reconstructed stone and brick.
