A STELLAR 12 months is the background to one of the largest independent brickmakers in the north of England and its chairman both competing for titles in The Press Business Awards.

The York Handmade Brick Company has entered the Small Business Category, while David Armitage is a contender for Business Personality of the Year.

The company won the Best Outdoor Space category in the 2015 Brick Awards for its ‘magnificent achievement’ in restoring the Belvedere and Queen Elizabeth Walled Garden at Dumfries House in Scotland, a pioneering restoration project masterminded by Prince Charles.

York Handmade is now working on major projects at London Bridge Station, Highgate School, the Westgate Centre in Oxford and Halifax Central Library.

Mr Armitage’s career was solidly based around bricks even before he bought a majority holding in the York Handmade Brick Company, which he is now owns outright.

York Handmade is based at a site at Alne, near Easingwold, which had previously manufactured a combination of clay pipes and bricks since 1933.

It is the most modern small brick-making factory in the UK and employs 28 local staff. It produces 4.5 million bricks a year.

He said: “It has given me enormous pleasure to help real brickmaking return to the Vale of York. Rural manufacturing has been in steady decline during the past 20 years, but the York Handmade Brick Company has bucked this trend in spectacular fashion.”

Major investment has included a computer-controlled kiln, which he said helped the company respond quickly to customers’ needs and enabled it to break into new markets.