Brick Industry

Wheatly's was established before 1819 and was famous for its 'Triton' brand roofing tiles. In 1978 the company was taken over by Daniel Platt Ltd of Brownhills Tileries in Stoke, then in 1982 works was closed and demolished soon afterwards.

It is always good to know what to do when things go wrong. Loxley refractory brickworks.

Refractory firebrick works, kiln interior. The business was killed off by competition from China.

The brickworks at Colwich was established by the Colwich Brick and Tile Co. Ltd. c1900 and produced pressed and wire cut bricks until 1970. After this the works lay derelict and abandoned until demolition in the mid 1980s. The site has now (inevitably) been developed for housing. This view shows the offices, dryer and production shed, with the 80ft chimney and Hoffmann kiln behind.

Empty spaces at this closed refractory works.

Out in the desert to the east of the small town of Linwu the Daba- Guyaozi coal railway passes a brickworks a few kilometres from Guyaozi. On a dark January day it had just begun to snow, a precursor to a severe blizzard that nearly trapped our bus after dark, and QJ 7205 heads downhill with a loaded train heading for Daba and the interchange with China Rail. I understand that China Rail has now taken over the operation of this line.

Established in 1906 by Walter Thomas Knowles, this brickworks at Elland continues to manufacture drainage pipes and chimneypots using downdraught behive kilns. Today W T Knowles and Sons Ltd is one of only three such manufacturers left in Britain.

I had a trip out today and found a wide range of traditional chimneypots being made in round downdraught kilns. :-)

In the countryside around Nanpiao can be found a rich mixture of industry. Here at Hongshila there are derelict brick kilns with the staging and simple screen of a drift mine behind. The local cement works fills the background.

All wrapped up and ready to go. The finished product at Claughton brickworks near Lancaster.

What do you do with the flawed or faulty glazed bricks? Use them to build the walls of the buildings in your brickworks. A nice selection of colours in these walls at the Halifax Glazed Brick Works that was once operated by Allen & Son (Halifax) Limited.

Angle-changing station close to the top of the Claughton brickworks aerial ropeway.

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.

Brick production in northern China is largely based upon Hoffmann type continuous burning kilns which are operated only for a season until the weather becomes too cold to make bricks due to frost damage that would occur to green bricks in the winter. Most villages of any size have their own brickworks and this is an example from high up in the Jinpeng area photographed from the balcony of a brake van on a passing train.

Part way along the aerial ropeway at the Claughton Manor Brickworks.

In China most villages seem to have their own brickworks to supply local demand. In this area between Daban and Chifeng in the Mongolian Autonomous Region was the valley of the brickworks with many kilns making pipes, tiles and bricks. The straw covering is essential to protect the green pipes from night time frosts.

The Hathern Station Brick and Terra Cotta Company was established in 1874. The business flourished and 'Hathernware' and glazed faience' was exported worldwide during the first three decades of the twentieth century and many cinemas were faced and decorated with the products of this works. Although the company survived into the 1970's when restoration projects began to provide much needed business, takeover by Ibstock finally led to closure of the works in summer 2004. Today the brickworks site is used as an industrial estate whilst a small terracotta design and restoration workshop is maintained on site for Shaws of Darwen who continue to manufacture terracotta and faience and wisely chose to take advantage of some of the skilled workforce from the Hathern business. The terracotta panels advertising old company can be seen from trains passing on the Midland main line between Nottingham and Loughborough.

The Lough Allen Brickworks at Spencer Harbour on Lough Allen was established in the early nineteenth century and operated until the 1920s. Today all that remains are a number of derelict cottages and timber loading jetties with a single chimney. The works was supplied with coal from the nearby Arigna mines and bricks were shipped out across the lock and then the Lough Allen Canal to the Shannon. An example of the bricks produced at this works can be seen here .