York Handmade Brick Company completes £78k project on ‘stunning’ Art and Design Technology Centre in Pocklington

The York Handmade Brick Company has completed a £78k scheme in which it helped create a new Art and Design Technology Centre at Pocklington School, near York.

York Handmade, based at Alne, near Easingwold, supplied 31,000 bricks for the exterior of the new £2.5m building, together with 4,300 terracotta tiles for the interior floor.

The original 1969 Art and Design Centre, a single-storey structure out of keeping with the rest of the school, has been removed to make way for the new building, which will be completed by November.

George Houlton of Hull is the main contractor on the project.

David Armitage, chairman of York Handmade, commented: “It was a tremendous honour to be asked to provide our bricks and tiles for such a prestigious project. Pocklington School has a long and proud artistic heritage and this stunning new building reflects this.

“Our increasingly popular linear Maxima Galtres bricks have been used on the building’s exterior, complementing the contemporary design and fitting in with the School’s architecture and landscape.

“We were commissioned by York architect Simon Mitchell, who has used our products on several projects before, to create a bespoke design of our Onda terracotta tiles, which have been used on 210 sq metres of internal flooring.

“The design of the tiles is based on a 330mm diameter circle with two sides inverted to create an interlocking ‘wave’ type pattern, all in the natural looking material of York Handmade terracotta made from our own local Vale of York clay.”

Simon Mitchell added: “I am exceptionally pleased with the contribution made by York Handmade to Pocklington School’s new Art and Design Technology Centre. The exterior, with its every altering facades, is just as I imagined, with the handmade bricks effortlessly combining a sense of heritage with a cutting edge look.

“It is a joy working with a company like York Handmade. They are focussed and flexible, understanding exactly what a customer needs, and skilled enough to provide exactly what is wanted. They have helped to create a magnificent building, which should inspire everyone who works within it.”

Mark Ronan, headmaster of Pocklington School, said: “The design of our new Art and Design Technology Centre has been very well received and the York Handmade bricks we have used for the exterior fit perfectly within the School’s campus.

“The floor tiles provide a striking feature within the building itself and we are greatly looking forward to beginning teaching in there, inspiring pupils to develop their own creative skills.”

Mr Ronan added: “The project has been the focus of a major campaign by the school to raise funds to build the new Centre in support of the next phase of the school’s strategic development plan.

“Designed to inspire the pursuit of traditional arts and crafts, plus provide cutting edge facilities for digital imaging, editing, animation and computer-aided design and manufacturing technology, the new centre will greatly enhance the pupils’ experience.”

The Campaign Chairman Christopher Oughtred recently announced the total was now not far off the £1.9m mark, with a final push underway to meet the £2m campaign target.