Four Seasons

The most colourful stone in the book: large rose-cream clasts sit beside dark green-black zones, with genuine touches of red among them. The contrast is high, the palette wide, and no two places on the slab look alike.

A stone like this is a decision rather than a choice. It works as a single surface in an entirely restrained room — cabinetry in one colour, no figured splashback, no second accent. The slab is in transit; it is worth arranging in advance to see it when it lands.

Granite is a crystalline igneous rock — quartz, feldspar and mica cooled slowly at depth — and among the most durable things you can put in a working kitchen. Everyday use does not scratch it, kitchen acids do not touch it, and a hot pan will not scorch it. It is porous to a degree, so the slab is sealed before delivery; resealing every year or two is what keeps oil marks from settling around the hob.

Every slab is one single piece of rock, and no two slabs of the same stone are ever identical. So we drive out to the supplier's yard with you, choose the actual slab there, and mark the layout on it before it is cut.