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 church with the crooked spire. 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 the hole created by the clay extraction is filled with household waste. As this waste decomposes it produces a large amount of methane gas, which is collected and pumped to the brickworks..