One of Britain's most famous brick factories is to shut down - the latest victim of the credit crunch.
Eighty jobs are to be axed when Accrington Brick Works in Lancashire closes at the end of October.
Bosses at operating company Hanson Building Products blamed the building industry slump with demand for bricks down 40 per cent.
The historic works is noted for its distinctive shiny red "Nori" engineering bricks.
"Nori" bricks (Nori is iron spelled backwards) have been used in building millions of homes for more than 150 years and have been exported all around the world
The firm's German-owned parent company Heidelberg Cement Group said the site would be mothballed in the hope that it might one day be re-opened.
A spokesman for Hanson said: "We have seen our output reduced by 40 per cent in the past six months.
"The slump in the business is completely unprecedented.
"We have seen peaks and troughs in the past but now there are fewer new houses being built than at any time since the Second World War."
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