Phoenix Brick Company

When an ordinary brick just won't do!

The company's original name was Campbell Brickworks and was built adjacent to the now defunct Campbell colliery. Following successive Nationalisation and De-nationalisation programmes involving both the Coal Board and the British Steel Corporation it was sold by BSC to a private company, Innes Lee Industries, in 1971. In 1988 Innes Lee sold their brickworks to Tarmac Building Materials, who ran the site for four years before its closure in 1992. The company was then purchased by the present owners in May 1993, and reopened as Phoenix Brick Company Limited

Technical Background

The Phoenix Brick Co Ltd is an independent brick manufacturer operating from a single site in North East Derbyshire some five miles north of the Market town of Chesterfield, famous for its Crooked Spire and the achievements of its football team in 1997 in reaching the semi-final of the FA Cup.The works were built in 1929 by the Stanton Coal & Iron Company to provide common bricks for its own use. The second of the two traditional Hoffman kilns was built in 1931, and both kilns were coal fired until 1973 when they were converted to gas firing. Since then both LPG and natural gas have been used to fire the bricks but since 1980 the usage of landfill gas has increasingly replaced fossil fuels, and since the year 2000 the works has been using virtually 100% landfill gas. Basically this is methane gas produced by the decomposition of domestic refuse that has been used to fill the voids created by the clay extraction. Its use as a kiln fuel is extremely environmentally friendly as otherwise it would contribute to damaging the ozone layer.

The raw material for the brick production is locally occurring Coal Measure Shale which is brought onto site by road from the working located about a mile from the works. The bricks are produced by extrusion and pressing, and a wide range of traditional sizes and surface textures are available. More detail can be found elsewhere on this website. The current output is approximately 170,000 Facing and Engineering bricks per week, which equates to around 8.5 million per annum. A wide range of Imperial sizes is available, usually from stock, and other sizes to suit customers' requirement can also be produced. Certain products are "weathered" to provide an authentic aged appearance.

Phoenix employs some 35 people and the labour intensive nature of the operation permits more production flexibility in areas such as blending than would normally be the case in a more modern factory

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Phoenix Brick Company

Postal Address: The Brickworks, Campbell Drive, Chesterfield S43 2PR
Sales/Accounts Tel: 01246 471576 - Fax: 01246 471683
Works Tel: 01246 473171 - Fax: 01246 280345
Email: info-phoenix@tiscali.co.uk