Saturday 28 December 2013

Macclesfield Reclamation Yard

     



In July of this year, I was just getting close to Congleton to visit my cousin, when I came across an old entrance wall to a house knocked down & men building a new house at the side of it, I could not resist a look at the old wall. After looking at the bricks with one of the workmen, (their was only one named brick & that was a PB - Potteries Brick Co Ltd), he said he was one of the owners of Cheshire Reclamation in Macclesfield & I was welcome to go & look around the yard. So when I told my cousin about the meeting, she said she had been there with her husband many years ago & we would go there another day. These are some of the bricks found that day.



Jabez Thompson operated two brickworks in Northwich, one was on Manchester Road & is recorded in Kelly's 1896 edition. The second on Warrington Road (now Aldi) is recorded in Kelly's 1902 & 1914 editions. Jabez had joined his father John who was a brick yard owner, joiner, timber merchant, salt works owner & merchant in operating the Road Brick & Terra Cotta Works & the Alliance Salt Works. Jabez went on to concentrate on the running of the brickworks with his brother John junior then going into partnership with his father in the salt works. After his father's death Jabez became co-owner of the Lion Salt Works at Marston with his brother John junior. John junior continued to be in charge of the running of the salt works & Jabez carried on brickmaking.

  © Crown Copyright. Reproduced by permission of NLS/Ordnance Survey 1900.
Jabez Thompson's Warrington Road works is marked in green & their are two brickworks marked on Manchester Road (yellow) & I do not know which of the two belonged to Thompson. He may have owned both ?



The Enfield Brick & Terra Cotta Works was established between Henry Street & Whinney Hill, Huncoat, Accrington in 1887.


Huncoat Plastic Brick & Terracotta Co. was on Yorkshire Street, Huncoat, Accrington & was in production from 1894 to 1992.


In the 1824 edition of Baines Trade Directory, Brownbill & John Withnell are recorded as brickmakers at Eaves Lane, Chorley. The Withnell family were also timber merchants & builders. John is recorded as an original shareholder in the Chorley Gaslight Company. A lot of Withnell bricks are stamped 1912 Company, so I am not sure if they are the same company established by John in 1824 ? 


John Ryder is recorded in Slater's Directory as brickmaker on Ashton Road, Openshaw, Manchester in 1886 & then again in 1895. Below is another brick by him stamped Ryder, Openshaw.





These initials are more than likely the person who purchased the brick for a building, eg a church, rather than a makers stamp.



Henry Doulton well known for producing sanitary ware & porcelain, owned two brickworks. One in St. Helens, Lancs. possibly on Boundary Road & the other, The Springfield Brick & Tile Works was on Springfield Lane in Rowley Regis, West Midlands. It was in production from the 1840's to the late 1960's or early 1970's, with the works being demolished in the 1970's. In Rowley Regis both Henry's pipework factory & the brick & tile works were situated on the Dudley No. 2 Canal which he used to transport his goods. This example could have been made in St. Helens ?, as I have a reference that they made blue bricks at Springfield's.


I have only been able to find that this brickworks was next to the railway station in Shawforth & it went into liquidation on the 15th August 1910.


The County Brick & Tile Co. at Rakehead, Stackstead, Lancs went into liquidation on the 26th May 1900 after 13 years of production & was owned by Thomas Ratcliffe. Seventeen years after the disused brickworks had closed the 114ft chimney, constructed with 90,000 bricks was pulled down.


Three animal prints & 1 heel print possibly a childs.


The only reference I have found is that the works was taken over by J & A Jackson of Manchester in 1975 & from the article it had closed by 2000.


In 1825 William Ingram founded his company in Wortley, Leeds to extract, coal, ironstone & fireclay from his property. The fireclay site covered 7 acres & employed between 400 & 500 workers. He was later joined by his sons Robert, Henry & Frederic in the company. In 1889 William's company (bricks are stamped Ingham, Ingham & Sons - Wortley or Wortley Fire Clay Works, Elland Road) was formed with several other Leeds area refactories into the Leeds Fireclay Company which included Burmantofts, Edward Brook & Sons, Oates & Green Ltd & Joseph Brooke & Sons.


John Hughes born c 1807 was followed by his son Elijah Forrester Hughes in his brick making business in Corbridge, Stoke on Trent. Elijah is recorded in the 1872 edition of Kelly's Trade Directory as a brickmaker.







Sunday 10 November 2013

Phil Sparham Collection

These are from Phil's collection which I have recently photographed covering names outside the East Midlands.
See my other blog for his E.M's bricks. 
http://eastmidlandsnamedbricks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/phil-sparhams-east-midlands-collection.html








N C B Hall End started life as Morris & Shaw Ltd. who operated Birch Coppice Collieries at Polesworth near Tamworth. Locally the main pit was known as Hall End. The brickworks are recorded of being in operation in 1940 & again in 1947 at the time of nationalisation.





The company was first started by Benjamin North in 1863, he was joined by Pflaum in 1898 to form North & Pflaum of Wortley, Leeds. They are recorded in Trade Directories 1898, 1908, 1911/12 & 1922. In the 1908 edition they are listed as  making white & coloured glazed bricks at Wortley Firebrick Works, Upper Wortley Road, Leeds. Info by Phillip Rothery.



The Twentywell Brickworks at Bradway, Sheffield, was adjacent to the railway cutting off Twentywell Lane & was in operation from 1875 to the 1950s.


 

One of the many recorded examples from this brickworks which was adjacent to Lidgett Colliery, Barnsley.





Monday 28 October 2013

Renishaw Finds - Revisited

After a tip off from a fellow brick collector, here are the finds of that day. Although Renishaw is in Derbyshire, bricks found were mostly from Yorkshire. The D & S Clarke brick that I found was not very well pressed & hard to read, so I have used one I photographed previously.                



D & S Clarke are recorded at Greasborough Road, Masborough, Rotherham in Kelly's & Whites Trade Directories from 1893 to 1935.


               
Brightside Brick & Tile Co. are recorded in Whites & Kelly's from 1901 to 1908 at Meadow Hall Road, Sheffield. 



George Robinson, Wortley Road, Masbrough near Rotherham is recorded in Kelly's 1893 & White's 1901 editions. Then in Kelly's 1905 to 1919 editions, the works are recorded as G. Robinson (Exors. of), so George had passed away & the company was being run in his name by his Executors. 


This brick was made at Hazel Colliery & Brickworks formally known as Cottam No.2 pit in Barlborough. Hazel Colliery had been reopened together with a brickworks in 1909 by a local consortium. The colliery closed in 1914, but the brickworks continued until 1917 as the Barlborough Brick Co. Ltd. The brickworks is recorded in the 1912 edition of Kelly's Trade Directory as Barlborough & Cottam Brick & Tile Co. Ltd. Barlborough, Chesterfield. I then found from the London Gazette that the company went into liquidation on the 14th March 1912, hence the renaming of the brickworks to Barlborough Brick Co.
Please note the wrong spelling of Cottam, this was very common to find misspellings or letters reversed on bricks at this period of time.



West Melton, nr Rotherham


Parkgate, Rotherham


HBC - Hoyland Brick Co, Barnsley. 
Believed to been made at the Skier Springs brickworks.


Revisited - 11.11.14


Although I had been told that all the bricks had been crushed, I called in while I was in the area, finding that they are still in the process of clearing the site & there were still a few bricks to be found.



The Killamarsh Brick Co. Ltd near Sheffield is recorded in Kelly's  from 1899 to 1912 editions.



EFW - Earl FitzWilliam of Wentworth Woodhouse, owned the Skier Springs brickworks at Hoyland, Barnsley. The works was started in 1877 by James Smith & was always known locally as Smith's Brickworks. The Earl owned large areas of land & many collieries in South Yorkshire & he took over the works in the early 20th century operating it until 1919.



Attercliffe Brick Co. Ltd. is recorded in White's & Kelly's trade directories at Copster Road, Attercliffe in 1901, then at Darnall Road, Sheffield in 1905 & 1908 editions.



S.B.Co. Sheffield Brick Co. is recorded in Kelly's & White's from 1893 to 1974 editions with works at Rutland Road, Aizlewood Road & Botham Street, Sheffield. From the web I have found the company had works at Wadsley Bridge & the Wincobank Brickworks on Shiregreen Lane. 
The Rutland Road brickworks was where the company had it's Head Office & is recorded to be the company's last operational brickworks in 1970. 

The works at Wincobank is recorded as being owned in 1901 by Frank Nelson, builder & brick manufacturer at the Higher Wincobank Brick Works in the parish of Ecclesfield, before S.B. Co. took over the site & his bricks could be the ones stamped Winco.

The works at Wadsley Bridge on Halifax Road had been owned by Mrs. Elizabeth Birley in 1916 who had taken over the site from Charles Keyworth, who operated the New Patent Plastic Brick Co. there in the 1890's.



 1950's Adverts.

Photograph of a fully loaded S.B.Co. lorry can be seen Here.




W. S. Ironi was the trade mark belonging to The Woodside Brick Company on Chesterfield Road in Sheffield. The company has produced different frog designs in the their bricks stamped either Woodside or variations of the brick above with numbers, which up to No. 7 have been found. The works are recorded in Kelly's & White's from 1901 to 1968 editions & a photograph of the works dated 1965 can be seen Here.
A Homebase store is now built on this site.




Recorded in Kelly's from 1919 to 1968 editions, Coupe Brothers works was on Darnall Road in Sheffield. This may have been on the same site on Darnall Road operated by the Attercliffe Brick Company recorded in 1905 & 1908.



William Wright, Kettle Bridge Brick Works, Ribston Road, Attercliffe, Sheffield. White's T.D. 1908.



Edward Reddish is recorded in White's Trade Directory in 1901 at Beighton in Sheffield.



George Carr, brickmaker on Lovetot Road, Attercliffe, Sheffield is recorded in Kelly's from 1879 to 1908 editions.







Crosby - Bricks & Statues












While on holiday in North Wales this year, I visited David of Penmorfa fame. We had pre-arranged a visit to Crosby to look for bricks on the beach, the tide is forever turning new ones over. They had been dumped there as landfill after the Second World War clearance of bomb rubble from Liverpool. Also on the beach are the Antony Gormley statues, what a strange sight, they are so real from a distance when the water is around them.
So here are are a few photos of that day.