Mark Cranston began the pastime in 2010 when he was looking for a brick as a doorstop for his garden shed and found a white painted brick from a former colliery.

The discovery inspired him to look into the history of the brick and his passion grew from there.

Mr Cranston’s nine-year collection contains bricks from around Scotland, England, Wales and abroad. He has had to extend his garden shed over the years as his collection grew.

Mr Cranston, from Jedburgh in the Scottish Borders, told STV: “I was just looking for a brick to keep the garage door open and the first I picked up had a name on it. The first brick was the one from Whitehill Colliery in Ayrshire, which piqued my interest.

“When I looked it up online I was surprised by the history behind bricks. I started to see there was a lot more bricks out there. They were once outside but I’ve got a shed now where they’re all inside and dry.

“But I’m running out of space and it’s not ideal – I need to get bigger premises. Ultimately the aim is a museum where people can come and see them all.

“Everything else like pottery, glass and iron goes on display. but not the humble brick.”

Among his collection, Mr Cranston has a fire brick that was salvaged from the SS Politician, which ran aground in the Outer Hebrides in 1941 and was carrying 264,000 bottles of malt whisky – inspiring the famous novel Whisky Galore.

He has a brick that in the late 90s was retrieved from the demolition of the execution block at Glasgow’s HMP Barlinnie, Scotland’s largest prison.

He also has a Scottish-made brick from an old gold mine in Washington state, US, and the oldest brick he has is a drainage tile from 1833.