GARY Brookes had the shock of his life when he went to put out the rubbish at his Quarry Bank home and discovered brazen thieves had pinched his brick path.

The thieves had broken down a gate before helping themselves to more than 200 bricks from the alleyway to the side of Gary's home in New Street - leaving the 53-year-old precision engineer completely flabbergasted.

The bricks were made by Mobberley and Perry of Stourbridge and are believed to be the best of their type.

Their theft has baffled Mr Brookes who has lived at the house for 17 years.

He said: "I went to put out the rubbish. We'd had some rain and I thought the alleyway was looking darker than usual. Then I realised the bricks were missing. They'd even had the nerve to leave the broken ones.

"I'd gone to work on August 1 at 6am that morning and hadn't noticed anything different then.

"The bricks were laid on hard soil, but there were gaps between some, so it wouldn't have been that difficult to get them up.

"I've already had an insurance assessor come round and he believes the bricks were stolen to order. I just can't get over the brazen cheek of the thieves.

"I phoned up 101 to report the theft. When they asked me what had been stolen and I told them my footpath, they couldn't believe it."

The bricks had Mobberley and Perry Stourbridge stamped underneath them - a well-known company in the area which finally closed down in the 1960s..

Mr Brookes added: "They were obviously expensive bricks and quite irreplaceable. It's just sad that something has been taken that has such significant local heritage."

A spokesman for West Midlands Police said: "It's an unusual case of theft, but we have nothing to go on. There were no witnesses and no CCTV footage."

Anyone who has any information about the theft is asked to call police on the non-emergency number 101.