Rippon Buff Smooth Sandstone · Sawn & Honed
Warm waves, smoothed flat. Sawn on all six sides and honed across the face — buff, cream, gold and pink moving through a surface flat enough for a contemporary garden. Direct from the manufacturer.
Twenty-three photographs of the stone as it actually arrives — slab faces, laid patios, packs and steps. Every one enlarges.
Buff sandstone reaches British gardens under a long list of names. Rippon Buff smooth, Rippon Buff Indian sandstone smooth, sawn Rippon buff sandstone, Rose Rippon, Camel Buff, Woodland Buff, Beige Buff — merchants each settled on their own label for what is one material. If your quote says one of those and this page says another, you are looking at the same stone.
It is sawn on six sides and honed flat on the face. Colour runs warm — buff, cream, gold, pink and soft beige — with a cloud-like movement of yellow and brown that the honed surface shows far more plainly than a riven one ever does. Most UK merchants calibrate it to a nominal 20 mm; we cut from 20 mm up to 30 mm, and the 900 × 600 mm slab outsells every other size.
Rose Rippon, Camel Buff, Woodland Buff, Gardha Buff, Buff Multi, Beige Buff, Rippon Buff Honed — these are trade names for the same sawn and honed buff sandstone, not different stones. Different merchants and different markets settled on different labels. What varies between the photographs below is natural batch variation, which is inherent to the material rather than a difference in product. Order a sample against the batch you are buying.
The 600 × 900 mm slab is the size that sells most; dry-laid patio packs mix four sizes; bullnose steps are cut at 40 mm for entrances and level changes.
Buff Rippon Smooth — also sold as Buff Rippon Sawn Honed — is the contemporary counterpart to our riven Rippon Buff. It carries the same natural orange, green and pinkish shades with yellowish waves, but the sawn and honed process presents them entirely differently: where riven gives you texture and shadow, honing gives you clarity. The waves and colour banding that make this stone distinctive read far more vividly across a smooth surface.
The blend is genuinely warm — a sandy-brown base with crimson and lavender undertones creating an interplay of colour that varies from slab to slab. Every piece is unique, distinguished by the infinite tonal variation that makes Rippon Buff so desirable in the first place. It is one of the most popular Indian sandstones in Britain for exactly that reason: it brightens a garden in a way cool greys cannot.
The stone is sawn straight off the block rather than split, cut down to size, and the top surface honed to a smooth finish with a slight sheen. All six sides are sawn, so the four edges are straight and machine-cut to complete the contemporary look. Sawn paving carries a natural level of slip resistance and, as long as it is maintained, retains its grip underfoot.
Standard mixed packs cover approximately 18.5 m². The most common single size is 600×600mm; 900×600, 600×300 and 450×450mm also available, plus walling, coping, steps and circle kits (2.8m, 3.6m, 4.5m).
Most UK buyers arrive with a merchant specification rather than a stone name — a thickness, a slab size and a pack format. Here is how Rippon Buff Smooth sits against the two sawn Indian sandstone ranges most often specified in British gardens, so you can match a spec you already have.
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| Rippon Buff Smooth Malujiwala Stone |
Fairstone Sawn Versuro® Marshalls |
Towngate® Marshalls |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Material | Indian sandstone | Indian sandstone | Indian sandstone |
| Surface | Sawn six sides, top face honed smooth | Sawn, then lightly textured by a process Marshalls describes as unique to them | Sawn |
| Thickness | 20 / 22 / 25 / 30 mm calibrated | 22 mm | 18 mm |
| Slab sizes | 900 × 600, 600 × 600, 600 × 300, 450 × 450 mm | 855 × 570, 570 × 570 mm; 1210 × 210 mm in the Linear format | 915 × 610, 610 × 610, 610 × 305 mm |
| Pack format | Mixed four-size project pack, approx. 18.5 m² | Single-size packs of 17.06 m² and 19.49 m², plus an 11.3 m² multi-size project pack | Four-size project pack, approx. 20.9 m² |
| Colour selection | Warm buff — cream, gold, pink and soft beige, with the natural wave banding left visible | Four colourways: Antique Silver, Caramel Cream, Golden Sand, Autumn Bronze | Loosely colour-selected, giving a more random variation once laid |
| Bought from | Malujiwala Stone, the manufacturer — four units since 1996 | Merchants and approved stockists | Merchants and approved stockists |
If a designer or merchant has already written a branded line into your spec, the useful question is what the underlying cut actually is. Find the code you were given and we will quote the equivalent in Rippon Buff Smooth — or tell you plainly when a different stone is the honest match.
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| Specification you were given | What that actually is | What we would quote |
|---|---|---|
| Fairstone Sawn Versuro® 855 x 570 x 22mm | A 22 mm sawn Indian sandstone slab in a long rectangular format | 900 × 600 × 22 mm sawn & honed — our closest standard cut, and a size we hold |
| Fairstone Sawn Versuro® 570 x 570 x 22mm | A 22 mm sawn Indian sandstone square | 600 × 600 × 22 mm sawn & honed — the most commonly specified square in UK gardens |
| Fairstone Sawn Versuro® Linear Sawn Versuro® 1210 x 210 x 22 Caramel Cream, Golden Sand or Antique Silver |
A 22 mm sawn plank format, roughly six times longer than it is wide | Plank formats are a cut-to-order item for us rather than a stock size. Send the exact dimension and quantity and we will confirm before you specify. For the Antique Silver tone, ask us about Kandla Grey Smooth — Rippon Buff is a warm stone and will not match a silver-grey scheme. |
| Fairstone Sawn Versuro® Project Pack | A multi-size project pack covering 11.3 m² | Our mixed four-size project pack, approx. 18.5 m² — 900 × 600, 600 × 600, 600 × 300 and 300 × 300 mm |
| Towngate® 610 x 610 x 18 Grey Multi | An 18 mm sawn sandstone square in a grey blend, positioned as the budget sawn option | 600 × 600 mm is our nearest square. Note the thickness gap: we calibrate from 20 mm upward. For a grey blend the honest match is Kandla Grey Smooth, not this stone. |
| Towngate® 610 x 305 x 18 Grey Multi | An 18 mm sawn sandstone half-size plank | 600 × 300 mm sawn & honed, calibrated from 20 mm. Again, grey schemes want Kandla Grey Smooth |
| Towngate® Project Pack | A four-size mixed pack covering approximately 20.9 m² | Our four-size project pack at approx. 18.5 m², or a pack built to your coverage figure on a mill order |
Where the branded line is a grey or silver blend we will say so and point you at a grey stone rather than sell you a warm one. Buff Rippon Smooth is a warm buff sandstone and nothing will make it read as silver.
Fairstone®, Versuro® and Towngate® are registered trade marks of Marshalls plc. Malujiwala Stone Company is not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or otherwise connected to Marshalls plc, and does not supply Marshalls-branded product. The figures above are reproduced from Marshalls’ own published product specifications and are shown for specification reference only; check the current data with Marshalls before relying on them. Rippon Buff Smooth is a different stone with a different surface treatment and is not offered as an equivalent to, or substitute for, any branded range.
A branded sawn sandstone range and the stone on this page are the same class of material. The difference sits in everything wrapped around it.
Buy a branded range and you are buying a package: the hand-selection programme, the merchant network that stocks it, the warranty, the marketing, the matching accessory range, and the margin of everyone standing between the manufacturer and your driveway. Those are real things. Some projects need them. But none of them is the stone.
Malujiwala Stone is the manufacturer. Four units, running since 1996, cutting sawn and honed sandstone for export. There is no importer, no distributor and no merchant between our saw and your pallet — which is the whole of the price difference, and the reason we can cut to your dimension rather than to a catalogue size.
What you receive is the stone under its own name. Rippon Buff Smooth, described by what it is rather than by a trade mark. We do not supply Fairstone®, Sawn Versuro® or Towngate® branded product and would not claim to — those belong to Marshalls. If your specification genuinely depends on a branded warranty or a matching branded step and walling range, buy the branded product; that is the honest answer. If what it actually needs is warm sawn buff sandstone at a given size and thickness, you are paying a premium for the label, and we will quote you the stone without it.
Prices only mean something when they are compared at the same point in the chain. Here is the honest version, stage by stage, for 900 × 600 sawn and honed buff sandstone.
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| Where you buy | What the price includes | Per m² |
|---|---|---|
| Malujiwala, ex-works | The stone, cut, calibrated, palletised at our unit. Freight, duty, VAT and UK handling all still to come | TO CONFIRM — insert your FOB rate |
| Malujiwala, landed UK | The realistic comparison figure: stone plus sea freight, duty, clearance and inland haulage to a UK yard | TO CONFIRM — insert your landed estimate |
| UK online stone merchant | Delivered to a UK address, VAT included — the same Rippon Buff Smooth stone, bought from an importer | £19.98 – £26.69 |
| Branded range at a builders’ merchant | Delivered, VAT included, plus brand, hand-selection programme, warranty and merchant margin | Quoted on application — Marshalls and their merchants do not publish a public per-m² rate |
UK merchant figures are the published prices for Rippon Buff Smooth sawn & honed at Paving Slabs UK as at August 2026, inclusive of VAT and delivery: £19.98/m² for 600 × 600, £26.62/m² for patio packs and £26.69/m² for 900 × 600. Branded ranges are sold through merchant trade accounts and no comparable public rate is published, so we do not quote one. An ex-works Indian price and a delivered UK retail price are not the same number and we will not present them as though they were — ask us for a landed cost to your port and compare that.
Sawn paving behaves differently to riven, and the difference costs money if nobody mentions it before the slabs go down. Four things worth knowing.
Seal before you lay it. This is the single most important thing with any sawn stone. Sawing opens up the stone’s pores far more than natural splitting does, so Buff Rippon Smooth will take a stain quickly if it goes down bare. Seal all six sides — top, bottom and edges — with a quality impregnating natural stone sealer before installation, not after.
Use an SBR bond underneath. Paint neat SBR onto the underside and let it dry fully before laying. It creates a barrier between the sand-cement mix and the slab, which is what prevents the patchy dark staining that shows up weeks later and cannot be undone.
Sawn edges are sharper — handle with care. Unlike hand-dressed riven edges, machine-sawn edges are crisp and square. That is what gives sawn paving its clean contemporary line, but it also means the arrises can chip if slabs are dragged or knocked. Lift, don’t slide.
Order 10% extra. Standard for any natural stone — it covers cuts, breakage and any undercounted measurement.
A merchant sells you slabs and leaves you to find steps and coping elsewhere, usually from a different batch and often a visibly different tone. We cut the accessories from the same block run as your paving, so the patio, the step edge, the wall cap and the circle all read as one stone.
A warm, bright patio — the antidote to grey in a British garden.
Matching walling in 100×100, 200×100 and 300×100mm.
Coping stones at 600×300 and 450×450mm; steps to 1500×300mm.
Focal-point circles in 2.8m, 3.6m and 4.5m diameters.
Sweep with a soft broom and wash occasionally with a mild, pH-neutral detergent. Never use acidic cleaners on Buff Rippon Smooth — or any natural stone — as they cause permanent, irreparable damage to both the colour and the structure of the surface.
Because it is sawn, keep on top of spills rather than letting them sit; a honed surface shows water marking more readily than a riven one. Reseal every two to four years depending on exposure. Done properly, a good sealer does more than protect — it deepens the natural colour and keeps it reading rich for years.
Same stone, different process. Riven is split along natural layers for a lightly textured surface with hand-dressed edges — the traditional patio look. Smooth is sawn on all six sides and honed flat, with straight machine-cut edges. The honed version shows the yellowish waves and colour banding far more clearly.
Sawn sandstone has a natural level of slip resistance and is not known to be slippery when wet, provided the paving is maintained. Riven grips better, so for pool surrounds or slopes we would recommend the riven version.
Yes, and before laying. Sawn paving is far more porous at the cut face and stains easily if laid bare. Seal all six sides with an impregnating stone sealer, and use an SBR bond on the underside to prevent sand-cement staining from below.
600×600mm is the most common paving size, with 900×600, 600×300 and 450×450mm also available. Beyond paving we supply matching walling (100×100, 200×100, 300×100mm), coping stones (600×300, 450×450mm), steps (900×300 up to 1500×300mm) and circle kits in 2.8m, 3.6m and 4.5m.
Warm buff — a blend of orange, green, pink and grey, with yellowish waves across the surface and crimson and lavender undertones. Colours deepen noticeably when wet. Every slab is unique; mix from all crates as you lay to distribute the tones evenly.
Yes — one stone, several trade names. Rippon Buff Smooth, Buff Rippon Sawn & Honed, sawn Rippon Buff and buff smooth sandstone all describe the same sawn and honed Indian sandstone. Merchants also shorten it to Rippon Buff Smooth Indian sandstone. Spelling varies too: Rippon and Ripon are both used for the same material.
Yes. 900 × 600 mm is one of our standard sawn sizes and the most common single size specified for UK patios, alongside 600 × 600 mm. Both are calibrated and sawn on all six sides.
Send us the dimensions and the quantity and we will tell you what we can cut before you commit to anything. Slab dimensions are not proprietary — the sizes used by UK branded ranges are simply cut sizes — but we would rather confirm a size against a live order than have you specify from this page. Ask us first.
Both are warm sawn and honed Indian sandstones, but they read differently. Fossil buff is paler and cooler, with fossil markings across many slabs. Rippon Buff Smooth is warmer and more active — cream, gold, pink and beige moving across the slab in bands. If you want quiet, choose the fossil buff; if you want the floor to carry colour, choose this.
The nearest cut we make is 900 × 600 × 22 mm sawn and honed. Both are 22 mm sawn Indian sandstone in a long rectangular format, so the laying pattern and joint spacing translate directly. The surface treatment is different — ours is honed smooth, and Marshalls texture theirs by their own process — and the colour will not match, so order a sample before you commit. Fairstone® and Versuro® are trade marks of Marshalls plc; we are not connected to Marshalls and do not supply their product.
We cut 600 × 600 and 600 × 300 mm, which are the standard equivalents of those two sizes. The thickness differs: Towngate® is 18 mm and we calibrate from 20 mm upward, which matters if you are laying into an existing level. Note also that Towngate® Grey Multi is a grey blend — if that is what your scheme calls for, ask us about Kandla Grey Smooth rather than Rippon Buff, which is a warm buff stone. Towngate® is a trade mark of Marshalls plc.
Plank formats at that ratio are a cut-to-order item for us rather than a stock size, so send us the exact dimension and the quantity and we will confirm what is workable before you specify anything. The Caramel Cream and Golden Sand tones are the warm end of that range and are the ones Rippon Buff Smooth sits closest to; Antique Silver is a cool grey and a different stone entirely.
Ours is a mixed four-size pack of roughly 18.5 m² in 900 × 600, 600 × 600, 600 × 300 and 300 × 300 mm. A Fairstone Sawn Versuro® Project Pack covers 11.3 m² and a Towngate® Project Pack around 20.9 m². On a mill order we can build the pack to whatever coverage figure and size mix your drawing calls for, which is the practical advantage of buying from the manufacturer rather than from stock.
It comes from the same place. It is the same class of Indian sandstone. The surface treatment differs — theirs is lightly sandblasted and brushed by a process they describe as unique to them, ours is honed — and the colour selection differs. Malujiwala Stone has manufactured sawn and honed sandstone since 1996 and supplies it under its own name, Rippon Buff Smooth, rather than under a trade mark. We do not supply Fairstone®, Sawn Versuro® or Towngate® branded product and would not claim to; those are Marshalls’ brands.
It depends entirely on where you take delivery, and any supplier quoting you a single headline multiple is comparing the wrong numbers. An ex-works price at our unit excludes sea freight, duty, clearance, inland haulage and VAT — all of which a UK delivered price already contains. Ask us for a landed cost to your port or yard and compare that against your merchant quote. For reference, UK online merchants list this stone at roughly £20 to £27 per m² delivered and VAT inclusive; branded ranges are sold on trade account and do not publish a public per-m² rate.
Both, but it leans contemporary in this finish. The straight sawn edges and smooth face suit modern schemes, while the warm natural colour keeps it from feeling cold or clinical. For a traditional cottage look, the riven version is the better fit.
Tell us the thickness, quantity and destination — we'll come back with USD/sqft pricing and confirmed lead times. No agents in between.
These are the alternatives UK buyers most often weigh against Buff Rippon Smooth — including its own riven version.
Speak to our team for pricing, samples, MOQ details and shipping options to your country. Direct from India since 1996.
