Bespoke Rotary Quern Stone

Electricity-Free Pigment Manufacture

London Pigment's pigments, inks & sets in our core range Waste Stream Colour are produced through low-impact, electricity-free methods that rely entirely on slow, manual processes to ensure minimal environmental impact. Each colour is created using hand-powered tools, including a mineral ore crusher and a rotary quern stone, making the range fully hand-made from start to finish. These machines are modern replicas of 19th century and Roman tools, in which their combined use is rare to be seen in modern pigment making practices. 

The rotary quern stone with hand-fashioned crank handle by Nick Roberson

London Pigment’s Quern Stone

The quern stone pictured was commisioned by London Pigment & made by master carver Nick Roberson. It is based on a Roman quern stone found near Stonehenge. 

The rotary quern stone made for London Pigment is made from soft granite with a medium crystal size This allows the bed and runner to cut well but also ‘bed’ together and very slowly wear to ensure good milling. The grinding surfaces are very flat with excellent contact.

The post and handle are hardwood, the handle is extended to assist milling because initially the quern can be stiff to rotate. The Bed stone is larger than the runner and has a trough to collect the processed pigment around the edge with a ‘spout’ to enable the fine pigment to be collected. The top surface of the bed has 5 harp marks 1-2 mm deep. These will enable the milled powders to migrate into the trough.

The 'bedstone' dressed with 'harp' marks

A Brief History of Quern Stones 

Rotary querns date from the iron age when metal tools made it possible to fashion the

stone to make these simple ‘machines’ for processing cereal crops into flour. There are

many designs and differing stone types dating up until the early Tudor period but all share the basic design features, notably:

- Abrasive stone type

- ’Harp’ marks in the bed stone to help the flour exit the quern

- A suitable gap in the post hole to enable the unprocessed material to be fed into the

quern

The upper 'active' stone with feed hole 

With thanks to Nick for his expert guidance and providing me with the detail above. A huge thanks to the team at Heritage Crafts for supporting this work through the Endangered Craft Fund (2024)

To view Nick's incredible work click here