Stonehenge: Bluestones go East

Carn Meini in the Preseli Mountains
Image credit Moss

“Oxfordshire-based jewellery business Preseli Bluestone International is selling stones that form part of Stonehenge to the Japanese market. Its founder Colin Shearing told Insider of how a chance meeting in a Welsh village with an elderly sculptor ten years ago led to the creation of the business.

“Since then the company, based in Witney, Oxfordshire, has operated as “more or less a cottage industry”, selling its jewellery online and through the English Heritage shop at Stonehenge, but a recent approach from a Japanese distributor prompted Shearing, who lives in Chichester, to contact UKTI for advice on how to initiate an overseas deal.

“The stone, found only in the Preseli Hills in Pembrokeshire, West Wales, is popular in Japan because of its association with Stonehenge. “They are much more spiritually aware than we are,” Shearing told Insider. “Interest in spiritual matters such as crystals is mainsteam in Japan, whereas here it tends to be associated with hippies and new age people, such as crystal therapists. We’re very blasé about Stonehenge and we don’t always realise how iconic it is in other parts of the world.””

More here – http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/south-east/43803-stonehenge-provides-asian-business-leads/