The successful firms were part of a process involving over 100 companies, and will produce marketing collateral, conservation guidance notes, archaeological reports and commercial material for the conservation watchdog.

Wyndeham Press Group will produce web and sheet-fed work, including an events diary, with St Ives Web to print 500,000 handbooks. Hawthornes in Nottingham and London's Vitesse will tackle sheetfed work, as will Matthews. The Colourhouse in London is printing leaflets in a job worth over 200,000.

The tender process took over eight months to whittle the applicants down to six, with the contracts running for three years with possible two-year extensions in the offing.

Prior to the deal English Heritage print buyer Elaine Pooke said EH's nine UK regions used to contract work on an "everyone and anyone basis", which needed tighter structuring.

Pooke said she would use MIS technology to streamline jobs and eventually tap out orders online.

Story by Jez Abbott