Kemet Brown.

Kemet Brown sits at the top of the durability range with Brown Qusseir: 0.02 % water absorption, 29,600 psi in compression. Those figures matter in one specific way — this is a stone that shrugs off standing water, salt air and freeze, so it can go where a limestone would eventually powder.

Visually it is quiet. A deep chocolate to near-black ground with a fine crystalline structure that catches light rather than pattern. It reads solid from across a courtyard and reveals its grain only at arm's length, which makes it a good ground for brighter stone set against it.

Polished, the brown deepens almost to black and the crystals gleam. Flamed and bush hammered, it lifts to a warm grey-brown with a rough, sure-footed face — the version to specify for external steps, kerbs and pool surrounds.

Supplied as blocks, slabs and cut to size.