Business South March 2021

70 | QUARRYING Parkside Quarries Crafting beauty with Oamaru stone T Kelly Deeks S ince 1906, Parkside Farm in North Otago has provided some of New Zealand’s most prominent architecture with a uniquely beautiful and enduring construction material, the local limestone known as Ōama- ru stone. Some of the first limestone produced from Parkside Quarries was used to build Ōamaru’s iconic Opera House, and some of the more re- cent to build the magnificent Riverstone Castle north of Ōamaru. Parkside Quarries sales and marketing manager Ramahia Keno says the company supplied about 200 tonnes of Ōamaru stone to clad the castle’s solid masonry walls, in rectangular blocks which were hand bolstered “Natural stone delivers drama in a project like no other building product can. Homes built using locally sourced natural stone like Ōamaru limestone are highly durable and can be utterly breath taking, not to mention easy on the environment.” on site by the stone mason Ian Gold. Parkside Farm and Parkside Quarries are still in the original Mitchell family’s ownership and operation, with the seventh generation almost in their teenage years. Shane King is managing director, his broth- er Dustin is the CNC operator and quantity surveyor, their aunt Judy Mitchell-Oats is the quarry tour director, and her husband Mal- colm Oats is a quarry operator. Today, Parkside Quarries is the only remain- ing limestone quarry in Oamaru, with its high- grade creamy limestone very consistent. The stone is extracted from Parkside Quar- ries with a three-metre circular saw with a tungsten tip. Large two-tonne slabs are broken out of the quarry floor and carted about 200m to the factory where three 1.8m tungsten tipped saws cut the stone to the size required, before being carefully transported to the building site. All offcuts from the production of building stones are transported 500m to the Parkside Limeworks, where the rubble is crushed to dust and used as a soil conditioner. Once on site and laid by a stonemason, Ōamaru stone can be sealed to maintain its natural creamy colour. One of the sealing products recommended by Parkside for 40 years is also locally manufactured New Zea- land - Aquellux S, by Stratmore Construction Solutions. AQUELLUX New Zealand’s foremost water repellent AQUELLUX can be used across a wide variety of materials from natural stone, cement plaster, concrete, to terracotta pots. It is ideal for vertical and inclined surfaces. Water within the material is still able to evaporate out. Protects against: leakage and dampness, efflorescence and leaching of salts, mildew and the growth of lichen. To find out which version of AQUELLUX is best suited to your project talk to Stratmore on 0800 835 699. Or talk to us about our other high quality waterproof coatings and concrete sealers. www.stratmore.co.nz AQUELLUX S (for mineral building materials) AQUELLUX No.2 (for porous surfaces) state of the art protection and performance will not change the appearance of the material under normal application conditions good absorption allows for outstanding ability to repel water Some of the first limestone produced from Parkside Quarries was used to build Ōamaru’s iconic Opera House.