In our old house (built ca. 1905), we had lovely Welsh quarry tiles on the kitchen and dining room floors.
We went out to look for tiles today (in Cardiff). Apparently, they're very hard to get now - all the quarries closed down. It seems a shame that instead of a perfectly attractive local product, now the decent tiles have to come all the way from mainland Europe.
That was just an aside really. My main point: are (even hardened) terracotta floor tiles asking for trouble in a kitchen?
Daniele
Aren't Ruabon Tiles still going?
Depends on the surface finish of the tiles. A matt finish is fairly non slip. Had them in my last house and they lasted for years. [still there when I left]
Have quarry tiles got anything to do with quarries? At all?
Looks to me as if the name comes from:
quar·rel (kwôr??l, kwär?-)
noun
Etymology: ME quarel < OFr < ML querellus < VL *quadrellum, dim. of L quadrus, a square
I had no idea...
In fact they're made from clay, not stone. How confusing.
Still. The tileries closed down, at any rate.
Daniele
Indeed - mainly I posted because it sounded as if someone in a shop was trying to mislead you.
Given the Dennis Ruabon website shows then in industrial kitchens etc, they should be okay.
I mentioned them a while ago; someone said they weren't, but the website seems current
Owain
If someone assumes something as simple and straightforward as the idea quarry tiles being tiles that come from quarries, an assumption in which almost no active explicit thinking lies, then any clues or hints to the contrary will simply be unnoticed.
The fellow in the shop probably did say that the "manufacturers" (or "factories" or whatever) had gone out of business. But unless he'd said: "quarry tiles: they don't actually come from quarries", then it would have passed me by just the same.
Daniele
Owain coughed up some electrons that declared:
I had it from Topps that Ruabon had paused manufacturering, but were going to start up about now. But they were only going to do two colours, either red and brown or red and black IIRC - not the whole range.
Cheers
Tim
Encarta (FWIW) agrees wholeheartedly with you so it must be right ;o)
We ahve just had new quarry tiles put down in our new kitchen. I don't know where they came from but the builder had no problem sourcing them. They are a bit noisy but we are at risk from flooding, so we wanted something that would survive should it happen.
Jonathan
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