Bohus granite

Bohus Grey Tossene

The reference grey: lively black, beige, green and pink grains on a calm ground. The safe choice for large squares, quays and streetscapes, and one of the granites we ship most.

Bohus Grey Silver

Lighter, finer and cooler than Tossene, with a grey-blue tone. Its even grain and clean split make it the Bohus granite for crisp modern facades and precise detailing.

Bohus Red Skarstad

Warm and balanced. Often laid with grey Bohus to draw bands and fields into paving.

Bohus Red Broberg

Reddish with black and grey tones, close in colour to Skarstad but with a particularly calm, even texture. Robust when flamed or bush-hammered for steps and paving.

A stone with a past

Bohuslän has been Sweden's stone country for almost two hundred years, and one of its key places was the island of Bohus-Malmön. In 1842 a merchant from Uddevalla and the canal builder Nils Ericson were granted the right to quarry there; the first granite went to the locks of the Trollhätte Canal. For the next 135 years granite was quarried and dressed on the island.

Malmön granite became quays, locks, bridges, steps and monuments in Gothenburg and across Sweden, and was exported to Germany, the Netherlands, England, Argentina and Cuba. A polishing works on the island turned out columns and plinths, among them John Ericsson's mausoleum in Filipstad and the granite columns of the Riksbank in Stockholm.

For a long time everything was done by hand. Blocks were freed with wedges, crowbars and sledgehammers and hauled by rail to the harbour; electricity and compressed air only arrived in the early 1900s. The island's stone industry closed in 1977 to 1978, but the quarries, engine shed and compressor hall still stand. Zurface's founder Eric Waxin has his roots on Malmön. The Bohus granite we supply today comes from working quarries elsewhere in Bohuslän, and all four varieties have an environmental product declaration (EPD).