The Yorkshire Evening Post, 20 March, 1953 has an advert from Ramsay and Rodgers Brick Co., Ltd., Churwell near Leeds. The business seems to have taken over the Churwell Brick Works, off Old Road in Churwell which was advertised for sale in November 1950. At that time it had a 14 chamber Hoffmann Kiln with a capacity of 212,000 bricks. There was a Bradley & Craven brickmaking machine capable of making 1,200 bricks per hour. Photo by Louise Arundale.
Started in 1838 by the Botfield family in Stirchley, now part of Telford. It became the Randlay Brickworks in 1856. The brickworks closed by the end of the 1960's with the loss of 91 jobs. It was estimated that in the 1960s the brickworks could produce over 300,000 fiery red bricks in a week; sufficient to build 43 semi-detached houses. More info here: http://blackcountryhistory.org/collections/getrecord/GB149_D-SSW_2_AB/. Photo by David Kitching.
Photo by Phil Burgoyne.
Gareth found hundreds of these in woodland near Telford.
Randolph Colliery Brickworks, Evenwood, West Auckland, Co. Durham.
An example of a Randolph Colliery red facing brick, probably
produced from 'seggar' mined in the former Hutton seam. Although the
colliery dated to the late 1800's, the brickworks didn't start
production until 1931, remaining a private enterprise despite
Nationalisation of the coal workings, before finally closing in
1958. Photo and info by Arthur Brickman.
Photo by Chris Tilney.
Raven & Hitcham were active as builders and contractors around Gateshead from the 1890s to 1916. This brick will have been made for them by one of the local brickworks. Photo by Narbi Price.
Photo by Peter Lea.
Photo by Jase Fox.
Photos by courtesy of the Frank Lawson collection.
Photos by Phil Burgoyne.
Photo by David Kitching.
Found in a salvage site in Bolton by Henry Lisowski.
Seen on a house built 1935. Photo by Iain Taylor.
Photo by Henry Lisowski.
Photo by Don Boldison.
Ravenhead Rustic. Photo by Philip Wilkinson.
Both found on the seashore at Crosby, Merseyside.
Fiona photographed this one in Bootle.
John Harrison has discovered that all the above are products of the Ravenhead company. Their 1922 products book can be read here.
Found in a wall built in 1928. Photo by Friends of Williamson's Tunnels, Lynn Mills.
Photo by Phil Headford.
Richard thinks the W represents the Whitaker Brick Co., the owners of the works.
Ravenscar is a village around 12 miles north of Scarborough and has been described as 'the town that never was'. At the end of the 19th Century a development company bought the headland with a view to developing a town that would rival Scarborough and Whitby as a resort. Drainage was put in, ornamental gardens created, streets laid out and named and the nucleus of a shopping centre and a few houses were built, but the investors were unimpressed. The town for which Ravenscar Brickworks was established in 1900, by the Whitaker Brick Co, was never built. Nevertheless, the brickworks, set up in an old Alum Quarry, continued in production into the 1930s and, with the benefit of its own railway siding, provided bricks for, amongst other projects, the former Odeon Cinema in Scarborough. Though the two chimneys were demolished by the military in 1960, the substantial remains of the Hoffman kiln remain on land now owned by the National Trust. Photos and information by Richard Paterson.
Photos by Chris Tilney.