A call has been made to use more Scottish granite for memorial headstones.

Only a small percentage of memorial blocks are cut from the country's own stone, with most being imported.

The trend began decades ago and is largely driven by cost.

In the industry's heyday, most of the granite from local quarries helped build the city of Aberdeen.

Now in cemeteries, more than 95% of memorials are made from imported stone, usually from China, India and Brazil.

Allan Bruce, of Fyfe memorials in Oldmeldrum, said: "Imported stone has always come into the UK.

"We just want to get the message across that indigenous stones are still available.

"There's always an issue when you have imported stones from India and China that the cost of these materials are significantly lower but you've got to look at the carbon footprint of these stones coming into the UK."

One of Aberdeen's newest office complexes, Marischal Square, is made from 180 tonnes of imported granite from China.

It stands opposite Marischal College, the second largest granite building in the world. But cost and convenience meant imports are inevitable.

Mr Bruce added: "Imported stone may be cheaper but there are significant environmental costs associated with it, especially the carbon footprint."

Jim Fiddes, author of "The Granite Men", said: "There were new building materials after WW2 - steel, concrete, glass.

"There was rising cremation which mean fewer headstones were needed.

"There were of course imports and the lack of apprentices going into the industry but the primary reason I think was that the granite yards were all too small.

"They weren't big enough to invest in new machinery and compete with foreign companies."

The demand for Scottish stone isn't dead. But the industry is now well past its heyday and demand for stone in Scotland is ten times higher than we can supply.

Ewan Hyslop, of Historic Environment Scotland, said: "It's one of the reasons people come to Scotland - to enjoy our wonderful historic environment and we have to maintain that and keep it going for generations to come and if we can't tap into that geology in terms of supply of building materials that becomes increasingly difficult for us to do that."