Furness Vale Firebricks

Having finally located the lost negatives from my adventures in the early 1980s I can begin scanning some of the images hiding amongst them.

At that time I would spend a few days holiday with a friend visiting old disused industrial sites, and occasionally working sites where we were often made welcome by the management and allowed to wander through the buildings and yards photographing whatever we wanted. A far cry from today when we would be instantly killed in a terrible disaster if the current excessive safety culture is anything to go by.

One location we called at was R.E. Knowles, Furness Vale Colliery and Fireclay Works. The colliery side of the business had finished some years earlier, but the firebrick business was booming and the old coal-fired kilns were hard at work. At the time a significant portion of the business was supplying fire-backs to Saudi Arabia!

This is one of the clamp type kilns on the site and another can be seen in the left background. To the right is one of the beehive downdraught kilns also operated here.

Today the business continues, but making concrete based refractory items. The kilns are long gone and the yard is a small trading estate.