When buying a Fireplace there are two kinds of customer, one is looking for crisp, precise, consistent colour to compliment specific decor, and, the other (like me) would prefer a piece of history to compliment home.

To me the beauty of natural stone lies within the history that forms it.  Each piece of natural stone is unique to another. Limestone is a sedimentary rock primarily made of the mineral calcite CaC03 (here comes the science bit) which originates from the floor bed of tropical seas and turns into stone by the accumulation of the constituent grains of calcite and marine sealife.  Most limestone is formed with the help of living organisms, when the organisms die their shells and bones settle to the seafloor.  Over millions of years, these sediments of shells, sand and mud harden into limestone - your limestone fireplace is millions of years old and is made up of fossils! how cool it that! 

If you choose to buy a limestone fireplace you do need to be realistic about colour and consistency.  The legs and mantel shelf of your Gallery Fireplaces are colour matched as close as possible and at point of production any legs and mantel shelves with large fossils  (i.e 10 pence size or larger)  are generally rejected, but tiny fossils will be inevitable - to me that is the beauty of natural stone!