AN award-winning company has begun manufacturing handmade bricks which were used to build millions of houses in Victorian London.

York Handmade Brick Company is producing the iconic yellow stock bricks which were used in the capital in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Based at Alne, near Easingwold, they have already received an order for 30,000 of the bricks, with another 100,000 in the pipeline.

Guy Armitage, managing director, said: “This is a tremendously exciting and prestigious new project for us.

“The traditional London brickworks which supplied the yellow bricks have now been built on, so now the vast majority of these bricks are produced overseas. It seems only right that such a quintessentially English brick should be made in England.

“The buoyant London housing market is encouraging many home-owners in the capital to invest in their houses, with refurbishments and extensions, thereby fuelling the demand for bricks to match what is already there. This has provided us with a tremendous opportunity.”

York Handmade Brick Company is working with Stevenage-based Marshmoor Bricks, who will distribute to numerous builders’ merchants across the south of England.