BRICKS H

BRICKS H-N

HARRIS & PEARSON - Another Company born out of the Stourbridge fireclay industry.

The original works where established in 1739 at the Old Works at Amblecote. A century later the business was acquired by Mr Peter Harris and Mr George Pearson who, in about 1850, established the firm of Harris and Pearson. From here the business grew rapidly. The old works repeatedly enlarged, standing on six acres of ground, became too small to deal with the demand. In 1870 the new works were erected, covering nine acres. Other mines were bought and leased and the mining rights extend over one hundred acres. The company ceased trading in 1968.

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HAUNCHWOOD - The Haunchwood Brick and Tile Works in Nuneaton, Warwickshire was formed by Mr. James Knox and others in 1870. It is said that 'The business produced a wide variety of ceramic products as well as blue bricks which were renowned for their quality and widely used both throughout Britain and abroad. The clay used for making the bricks was extracted from the Clay Pool area from around 1894, creating a deep pit which later flooded'. Brick and tile manufacture ended 100 hundred years later in 1970 and the chimneys, kilns and other buildings were demolished the following year.

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HICKMAN & CO STOURBRIDGE - Founded by Henry Thomas Hickman in late 1800s the company made firebricks and extracted coal from a mine on the Delph at Brierley Hill.

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HICKS & GARDENER Co FLETTON - From Fletton in Peterborough. H G & Co began as a small brickworks in 1882. It's owner Henry Hicks was a local builder and in 1927 the company went public as Hicks & Co and was soon after taken over by The London Brick Company.

During the 1950s the requirement for workers in the brick industry was far greater than the numbers available locally, and as a result many Italians were recruited in the impoverished southern regions of Apulia and Campania.

By 1960, approximately 3,000 Italian men were employed by London Brick, mostly at the Fletton works. Very soon after the first men had arrived, they were followed by around 2,000 Italian women, some of whom worked alongside the men. As a result, Fletton has a large Italian population today.

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JACOBEAN - Buckley Junction brickworks was established by John Jones and Henry Lamb in 1911 when they took on a lease of the site and set about working the clay. In 1919 Frederick Phelp Jones acquired the business and renamed it the Buckley Junction Metallic Brick Co Ltd. The company used the trade marks 'Jacobean' and 'City' for some of their facing brick products. In 1956 after the company became bankrupt the works were acquired by the Castle Firebrick Co, but this only lasted for three years before complete closure.

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KING BROTHERS STOURBRIDGE 1860-1955. Manufacturers of fire bricks, glasshouse pots, crucibles, retorts and all fire-clay goods - From the earliest records the fireclay extracted from the bowels of the Black Country was considered to be of the highest quality. Usually lying beneath the coal seam, the extraction of fireclay occurred within a relatively small area. It was shaped into articles known as refractories, of which the most familiar kind is the firebrick. It was noted that Black Country refractories could withstand the very highest temperatures without cracking and so when the Industrial Revolution dawned, the Black Country fireclay fields really came into their own. By the late nineteenth century there was barely a blast furnace, glass cone, pottery kiln, steel works, iron foundry, coal mine, or chemical plant that did not use these refractories. Almost every industry in the Empire depended upon these brickyards, who by 1864 were making 30 million firebricks alone every year.

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KNIGHT WOODBRIDGE - Unknown but most probably from Woodbridge in Suffolk.

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LATHOM - Lathom near Ormskirk in West Lancashire was until recently a major brick making centre. Lathom brickworks was owned by R P Barker and was built on the site of the former Blaguegate colliery which closed in 1933. Many of the Lathom bricks were dated and this is a nice 1956 example.

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LBC GALCULON 19 - The London brick Company. It has been estimated that a third of all the brick houses in England are built from London Brick Company bricks. The London Brick Company started production just over a century ago and usage peaked in the Post-War rebuilding period up to the 1960s. At it's peak the company produced around 16,000,000 bricks per day. LBC bricks are the most common bricks to be found on The Thames Foreshore. This brick below is unusual as it is a double brick. No doubt made for constructing thicker walls. The word GAULCULON however is a bit of a mystery.

LBC DANGER ELECTRICITY - This brick was produced by The London Brick Company between 1910 and 1974 and this particular type was a 'cable slab' and was used to cover buried electricity cables.

LEEDS FIRECLAY BRICK CO LTD - The business began in 1859 when fire clay was discovered in a coal mine owned by William Wilcox and John Lassey. In 1863 Lassey's share was bought by John Holroyd and the company then named Wilcox & Co. Also in 1889 Wilcox & Co merged with other companies to found the Leeds Fireclay Co Ltd - the largest in the country.

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LISTER - Based at Scotswood some 3.5 miles west of Newcastle. The business operated under various guises from around 1828 to the late 1860's, their 'Salmon' trademark being a Tyneside icon, no doubt conceived because this location was once a thriving fishery, before the onset of industry.

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LITTLE MILLBRICK PONTYPOOL - Possibly the most prolific of the Eastern Valley brick works, Little Mill Brick Company operated at Little Mill, Pontypool. The company is first listed in the 1922 Kelly’s and it operated until the 1980s; the site is now a go kart track.

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LUCAS - Lucas Brothers, Dunston, Gateshead.

Abner Lucas, a native of Staffordshire, moved to the Eighton Banks area of Gateshead in the 1840’s and established his first brick making concern, later moving to Dunston where his sons and their families continued the business until the late 1930’s.

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LUMLEY BRICK Co FENCE HOUSES CO DURHAM - Based at the Lumley Colliery in Tyne and Wear the company made good use of the fine quality fireclay that was to be found in thin bands beneath the local coal seams.

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MARLAND - This brick has come from North Devon where in 1879 William Wren brought life back into the ailing ball clay industry by establishing the Marland Brick & Clay Works Ltd. He also built the vital Marland light railway from the works to Torrington. The North Devon Clay Company Ltd. took over the business on its incorporation in 1893.

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MARSTON - Marston Vale in Bedford, near Milton Keynes was home to some 167 brick chimneys at it's peak and produced around 18 million bricks per week and was considered to be the largest site in the world.

The industry here was established towards the end of the 19th century and relied on the Oxford clay belt for production. This clay was made up of 5% seaweed, formed 150 million years ago which meant that coal was not needed to heat the fires as the organic material burned itself.

The works closed in 2008 due to difficulty in reducing sulphur dioxide emissions to an acceptable level.

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METAL - This Staffordshire brick is from the Metallic Tiles Brickworks in Chesterton Newcastle. Opened in 1900 the business quickly expanded and doubled in size by 1915.

The local red-bed clay and Newcastle black shale were used to produce these firebricks that were known for their low water absorption and strength.

In the early nineties a famous double murder case was solved when painted bricks used as markers in a ransom drop were traced. By using pressing marks on the side of the bricks it was proved that they came from a batch sold to an employer of one of the chief suspects. A similar broken brick was also found propping up a bookshelf in the workshop of the suspect and he was successfully convicted.

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NETTLE - Possibly a product of the Manuel works in Linlithgow, Scotland and was part of the Stein Group. If so, it is named after a clay seam with a high alumina content, and dubbed "Nettle". The first Nettle bricks came out of the kilns in 1930.

The works closed in 2004

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NEWTON - The Newton Brickworks was located in the village of Newton Longville in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire between 1847 and 1990. Originally belonging to the Read family it became the Bletchley Brick company in 1923, and then was taken over by the London Brick Company (LBC) in 1929. The works produced bricks using the 'Fletton' technique and distributed bricks all over the country. It was closed down in November 1990 and is now a landfill site.

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NORTH-&-PFLAUM - Benjamin North is listed in trade directories from 1863 as a sole trader. By 1890, North is in partnership with Raywood and by 1898 he is in partnership with Pflaum at Wortley Moor Road, Leeds. the two names are linked in the directories until 1911/1912 although there is a later entry in 1922.