Handmade Facing Bricks 🧱

What Makes a Brick "Handmade"?

A handmade brick is thrown into a sanded mould by hand or semi-mechanically, rather than extruded through a die like a pressed or wirecut brick. The clay is soft — a "soft mud" brick, in the trade term — so the mould leaves natural creasing, folds and slight irregularity in every face. No two bricks come out identical, which is exactly the point.

The result is a wall with genuine depth and shadow-play that a machine-made brick can't replicate — the texture that makes a period house look like a period house, and increasingly the choice for new builds that want to avoid a flat, uniform finish. All frost resistance is rated F2 — fully frost resistant, so they perform in UK weather the same as any other quality facing brick.

Our Handmade Brick Range

Close to 400 handmade bricks in stock, covering every major colour family used in British brickwork.

Red & Red Multi Bricks

Our largest range by far. From clean, consistent reds through to heavily blended red multis with flashes of brown and charcoal, this is the colour family most new-build estates and traditional extensions are matched against. If you're matching an existing red brick wall, this is where to start looking.

Multi-Coloured Blends

Blends like City Blend, Village Multi Handmade and Cottage Blend combine several tones — reds, browns, charcoals, the occasional cream — in one brick, so the finished wall has natural variation without needing multiple products. These are the most forgiving choice when you're not matching an exact existing colour and just want a wall with genuine character.

Buff & Yellow Bricks

Warmer, paler tones for period properties and areas where buff or yellow stock brick is the local vernacular — much of London and the South East, in particular. Weathered Yellow and similar options are aged in appearance from day one, useful when matching an older wall that's softened with time.

Heritage & Conservation Blends

Heritage Blend, Thames Dean Stock, Rustic Farmhouse and Tumbled Cheshire are built to sit alongside period brickwork — softened edges, aged textures, and tones designed to match rather than stand out. If your project sits in a conservation area, these are worth looking at alongside our genuine reclaimed bricks.

Sizes & Pack Quantities

Handmade bricks are supplied in two standard depths, and the size you need depends on what you're matching or building to.

If you're extending an existing property, measure a course of the existing brickwork including the mortar joint before ordering — 65mm and 73mm bricks course very differently, and getting this wrong means the new brickwork won't line through with the old.

Matching Existing Brickwork

Matching an extension to an existing house is the single most common reason people come to us for handmade bricks, and it's worth doing properly rather than guessing from a photo.

Order a small sample of two or three close options and hold them against the actual wall, outdoors, in different light — brick colour shifts noticeably between full sun and an overcast afternoon. Look at the mortar colour too, not just the brick; a good mortar match can carry a slightly imperfect brick match, and a poor mortar match will undermine a near-perfect one. If you're not sure which of our blends is closest, send us a photo of the existing wall and we'll point you towards the nearest match — we do this regularly and it's genuinely no trouble.

Free Samples & UK Delivery

We offer free brick samples on our handmade range — genuinely useful given how much colour can shift depending on light and what it's viewed against.

Delivery is free to any UK mainland address, including London, Essex and the South East, where handmade bricks are a significant part of our trade. We are an independent, family-run merchant based in Preston — call us on 01772 287622 if you'd like advice before ordering, particularly on a brick match.