Harry Stevenson – the UK’s quickest junior bricklayer – believes he can get even faster after narrowly missing out on a world title in Las Vegas.
The Withington Masonry Contractors tradesman, who also completed his Level 2 Bricklayer apprenticeship at York College five months ahead of his scheduled, laid an amazing 165 bricks in 15 minutes at the SPEC MIX 500 Bricklayer World Championship.
That gargantuan effort placed him just 10 bricks short of the winner in the junior category.
It also represented an improvement on the performance that saw him lay 227 bricks in half-an-hour (172 after deductions for chipping, level issues, etc) on his way to winning this country’s 2025 National Junior Super Trowel competition – an achievement that booked him a place on the plane for Nevada.
The fear for his rivals in this country, meanwhile, is that Harry, now 19, intends to add to his junior success and, when he is old enough, establish himself as the UK’s quickest senior bricklayer.
On his performance on the international stage and his future speed bricklaying ambitions, Harry said:
I’m definitely getting quicker and all the bricks I laid in Vegas were neat as well. I felt I might have done enough to win, because some of the other walls weren’t very neat, but that’s probably going to be difficult when you’re up against Americans on their own soil!
I’ve enjoyed taking part in the competitions, though, and I’d like to do the Super Trowel Pro Series next. I think you have to be 21 to do that, so I will enter it and I think I’ll have a pretty good chance.
Harry was encouraged to test his talent at competitions by his York College tutors and, when he was 17, also won the Guild of Bricklayers Yorkshire Regional final in the New to Competition category.
He took part in the Go Construct SkillBuild competition, too, and credits the college with building his confidence and helping him prepare for the events – even after he had completed his apprenticeship.
Harry said:
John Mellor – my tutor – has played a big part in putting me forward for competitions and I’ve always gone to them knowing I’d have a good chance,” Harry explained. “College also let me come back to practice before the SPEC MIX.
At work, I’m mainly doing cavity walls which are 40 bricks long, whereas at College I can practice doing the nine-inch walls that are 10 to 12 bricks long, which is the format for the speed competitions.
If I hadn’t gone to York College, I don’t think I’d be as far on with my skills as I am.
He added that he has been grateful for the support of his bosses Danny Withington and Danny Cornish, although pointed out that he has to tone things down a little at work.
Harry said:
I’ve always had a bit of speed to my day’s graft, but you can’t go at that pace all the time, because it would be very tiring!” he reasoned.
Harry also dedicated his UK title triumph to a dearly departed family member, who first introduced him to bricklaying.My granddad was a bricklayer and I started off with him at weekends and after school.
He got me into the trade at 15.
He passed away last year and, sadly, didn’t get to see it, but I know he would have been over the moon.
Harry, who lives in Sherburn-in-Elmet, had only ever been abroad on holiday to Spain and Greece before his all-expenses four-day Vegas trip, which saw him stay at the Excalibur Hotel and enjoy a helicopter ride over the world-famous strip.
Back on these shores, Harry can generally be found working in less extravagant surroundings on sites across Yorkshire such as in Castleford, Knaresborough, Leeds, York and Upper Poppleton.
He could not be happier, though, to have followed an apprenticeship route that has given him a career and even a couple of prestigious titles and trophies along the way.
Harry said:
After I left school, I started doing a vocational course at another college, but I didn’t really enjoy it and I’d started doing some work on a site when the electrician I was working with told me he knew somebody who was looking for a bricklaying apprentice.
It was my current employers and they wanted to send me to York College instead, which I’m really pleased they did.
The apprenticeship was a good career choice for me. You get paid to learn a trade and I’m also an outdoors person.
I don’t want to be sat in an office. I like hands-on work.
See: York College Apprenticeship Schemes
