Brick Industry

The Furness Brick & Tile Co Ltd has been established for over 145 years and remains a family owned business. The works can manufacture a vast range of standard and bespoke bricks to order. The brickmaking machine, manufactured by James Mitchell & Son of Cambuslang, is seen here hard at work producing traditional frogged bricks at a rate of several thousand per hour

Francis Rufford established collieries and brickworks at Hungary Hill and New Farm in Stourbridge by 1812 and the business continued right through the nineteenth and into the twentieth century. This ticket covers the supply and transport by canal of sixty firebricks manufactured to a pattern supplied by the customer, Messrs Kay and Blackwell of Wharton Salt Works, Winsford. Despatched on 9th June 1849 the bricks were delivered at Middlewich Wharf six days later. From the wharf they would have been carried by cart to the Winsford salt works which lies a few miles distant on the banks of the River Weaver.

The Furness Brick & Tile Co Ltd has been established for over 145 years and remains a family owned business. The works can manufacture a vast range of standard and bespoke bricks to order. The transverse arch continuous kiln is still fired with coal and this is the scene on the kiln top.

The Furness Brick & Tile Co Ltd has been established for over 145 years and remains a family owned business. The works can manufacture a vast range of standard and bespoke bricks to order. The transverse-arch continuous kiln has twenty chambers and is coal-fired.

Terracotta panel on the wall of the Hafod brickworks that was built by Henry Dennis who traded as Dennis, Ruabon. There is another panel close by with the date of 1893 and this is probably of a similar date.

John Dyson was manufacturing firebricks on this site by 1834 and in 1838 the business was listed as "John Dyson and Son - Black clay miners and firebrick manufacturers, Griffs House, Stannington". The business was supplied with some clay materials mined close to the works and there are adits at the back of the premises. In 2005 rising energy prices had made the gas-fired kilns uneconomic and the works was closed and manufacturing transferred to Tianjin in China. The site is very slowly being demolished.

Warning notice close to the top of the aerial ropeway taking shale down from the quarry to Claughton Manor brickworks. The ropeway is in full use seven days a week and each bucket contains a quarter of a tonne of material.

The reopened brickworks at Claughton is operated by Forterra, which is the new name for Hanson Building Products.

Disused brickworks at Hongshila in the Nanpiao district of Liaoning Province in north-east China.

Bronze die plate with the name and location of the Vernon Brick Company that was used in the brick press at their works at Park Pit, Poynton.

The brickworks at Prestongrange once comprised eleven round downdraught kilns and a 24 chamber Hoffmann kiln. Today only the disused Hoffmann kiln survives.

A bucket of shale arrives at the end of the ropeway at Claughton brickworks in May 2016. The works is currently mothballed but is likely to resume production as soon as demand picks up.

Setting green bricks in the kiln at The Furness Brick & Tile Co Ltd. The business has been established for over 145 years and remains family owned. The works can manufacture a vast range of standard and bespoke bricks to order. The transverse-arch continuous kiln has twenty chambers and is coal-fired.

My recent visit to China included a brief call at a series of brickworks in Sichuan close to the Minjiang River about 150 km south of Chengdu. These brickmakers were employed at a small works that used two tunnel kilns for firing stock bricks. The three-wheeled truck is typical of those used at all the works in the area for moving bricks from the kilns to the stockyard.

Small gas-fired kiln inside the buildings of a refractory brickworks making a range special firebrick shapes for industrial use.

James Duckett, the founder of this firm, was born in December, 1825, the son of John and Jenny, his father was mployed as a cotton spinner. After working in a cotton mill and he became a stonemason with his brother and by 1851 was employing 30 men. In the 1859 he turned his attention to brick manufacture and by 1871 was a brick manufacturer and stone merchant employing 25 men. As the business prospered, he turned his attention to the manufacture of sanitary ware. It was this side of the business that was to prove most successful, and the works developed into the firm James Duckett and Son, Sanitary Pipe Manufacturers on Blannel Street in Burnley with a large claypit close to Burnley Barracks Station. His son Alfred later became involved with the business, as did his grandson, George. Initially James Duckett manufactured bricks using a large Hoffmann kiln at what was originally known as the Mitre Works where in 1870 he was advertising Dressed and Common Bricks, Field and Draining Tiles. In 1892 this is shown on the OS map as a brick and tile works but by 1912 James Duckett & Son Ltd was operating a Sanitary Ware Works with five circular downdraught kilns on the site. The Hoffmann kiln was abandoned and eventually demolished as brickmaking ceased and the works then manufactured a wide range of salt glazed urinal slabs & stalls, closet pans, wash basins, sinks & channel pipes which were sold all over Britain, Europe & South America. The Hepworth Iron Company acquired Ducketts in 1961 but production continued until the early 1970s. This trademark is on the water tank above the Duckett urinals in the Ship Inn in Macclesfield.

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

Small gas-fired hoffmann kiln inside the buildings of a refractory brickworks making a range of special firebrick shapes for industrial use.