International

There has been industrial activity on and around the current Ibstock Brick site dating back 200 years to the early 1800s. Brick making started on the site in the early 1830’s as a way of using clay extracted during coal mining. By 1914 Ibstock was producing 3 million bricks per annum. In 1928 the colliery closed and the company concentrated on brick, tile and pipe manufacture. Investing in the latest clay technology, the North Works was opened in 1934; one of the very first tunnel kilns in Britain. Acknowledging its new direction, the company was renamed Ibstock Brick and Tile Company Limited in 1935. Production on the site steadily increased and had risen to over 18 million by 1946.

The 1950’s was a decade of expansion for Ibstock. Recognizing the opportunity to promote the use of bricks to architects and specifiers, Ibstock recruited a specialist sales team and began selling bricks as an architectural item rather than as a commodity.

Expansion away from Ibstock started in 1962 with the purchase of Himley Brick. To help fund ambitious expansion plans, Ibstock become a public company in 1963 and the purchases of Aldridge and Burwell followed. By 1967 clay brick production had increased to 130m bricks per annum.
The 1970’s saw further expansion by acquisition, including the purchases of Roughdales, Nostell and Cattybrook, increasing capacity to 200 million bricks.

The Hudson’s Group was acquired in 1976 with factories at Laybrook and West Hoathly. Purchases on the continent, in Holland, proved unsuccessful. However expansion continued into America, first with Marion Brick and then Glen-Gery to give capacity in the USA of 500 million bricks per annum.

During the world recession of the early 1980’s Ibstock successfully fought off bids from rivals London Brick and then Redland Expansion continued in America with the acquisition of Hanley, New Jersey Shale and Midland Brick, making Ibstock the fourth largest brick maker in the US by the close of the 1980’s.

Ibstock purchased its first works in Scotland at Tannochside in 1994 and then embarked on a programme aimed at restructuring the whole brick industry.

In 1995 it acquired the brick making assets of Tarmac, including the Westbrick business in the South West, and the Nottingham Brick business at Dorket Head. It was followed up in 1996 with the purchase of Redland Brick Limited comprising of the former Redland and Steetley brick businesses.

In 1999, Ibstock acquired the assets of Ellistown brickworks, consolidating its position of with one third of the brick capacity in the UK. By the end of 1998 the Irish building materials group, CRH, made a successful takeover bid for the company involving the integration of Forticrete, the CRH concrete products and roof tile business into the Ibstock Group.

In 2002, Kevington, the country’s leading manufacturer of brick special shapes, arches and prefabricated chimney systems was added to the group. These were followed by the acquisitions of Supreme Concrete and Anderton Concrete to form the largest manufacturer of concrete building products capitalizing upon the group’s excellent links to the refurbishment and new housebuilding markets.

In February 2015 the Ibstock group was divested by CRH to Bain Capital. The new group, Ibstock Building Products, consists of some of the building industry’s most trusted brands; Ibstock, Glen-Gery, Ibstock-Kevington, Supreme, Forticrete and Anderton. The group is now the UK’s largest manufacturer of clay and concrete building products, employing over 2600 people in the UK and US with annual sales of almost £430m

Ibstock Brick now boasts the largest range of facing bricks in the UK offering an amazing diversity of products in terms of colour and texture; from bespoke handmade products used in high value niche markets and manufactured in small, local factories using traditional methods to high volume wirecut products manufactured at some of the most energy efficient factories in Europe. Our raw materials are sourced responsibly and we have on-going continuous improvement programmes at all our factories to ensure we supply a high quality, diverse range of products.