OUR HISTORY

APS Masonry Ltd has a history spanning over 200 years and is synonymous with fine stonemasonry. Originally forming part of the Symm Group, in 2016 it looked like the masonry side of the business was likely to close. Cotswold Natural Stone Ltd thought it would be a great asset to work alongside their quarried stone business so decided to put in a bid to purchase the business. They were successful.

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“At Cotswold Natural Stone we have our own masonry manufacturing works but without the specialised equipment they have at here (at APS). We thought that adding this equipment and the knowledge of the guys to what we already had would make the business even more successful. It would enable us to provide a service at a higher level.”

Luke Conlon, Director, Cotswold Natural Stone.

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Brothers, Paul and Luke Conlon, who ran Cotswold Natural Stone together at the time, were keen to retain the skills at Axtell Perry Symm (APS Masonry) and formed a new company, APS Masonry Ltd, which continues to operate from the same premises in Osney Mead.

They bought the machinery, stock and order book, so production for on-going projects continued seamlessly. This included a large house in the Cotswolds, a new music school in Oxford, and several smaller jobs which involved heritage work that had always been an important part of the APS Masonry mix, for example the dreaming spires of the Oxford colleges.

Since then, the business has gone from strength to strength and there is further investment planned in the future to improve the services.

In 2020 a decision was made to move all masonry manufacturing at Cotswold Natural Stone to APS Masonry Ltd in Oxford.