Victoria Brick works 1904
Victoria Brickworks at Ballingdon

Bulmer Road, Ballingdon, Sudbury

Victoria Brickworks

Number 14, Bulmer Road, stands on the corner of Brundon Lane. Built in 1879 by Edwin Coote Green, by 1891 it was occupied by Thomas Boreham, the manager of the adjacent Victoria Brickworks. This house is visible on the OS map attached in the bottom right hand corner of the brickworks.


Edward Gibbons, general builder and brickyard owner
 		in 1866 Ipswich brickmaker and builder Edward Gibbons was chosen as sole builder of the 'new' town hall on the Cornhill in Ipswich. While his own bricks were used for some interior work, the exterior was designed in mock Venetian style which meant importing a yellowish bath stone from Nottinghamshire, as well as red stone for the pillars and pilasters.

For much of the 1800s and early 1900s, Gibbons, who was based in St Nicholas Street, Ipswich, employed hundreds of men in brickmaking and building at Ipswich, Shotley, Chilton near Sudbury and the Crown brickworks at Red Hill, Aldham, near Hadleigh.

For a period from 1883 to 1888 he also ran the Victoria brickworks at Ballingdon.


Victoria Brickworks site BCB 019 today
The area today

The Suffolk Heritage Explorer lists the Victoria Brickworks as monument record BCB 019, Victoria Brick Works, kilns and drying sheds etc in N half of plot. OS 2500 map, 1887. Operated by Edward C Gibbons 1883-1888, closed 1910.


Summary of the owners or managers

  • 1883 to 1888...Edward C Gibbons
  • 1910...Closed down

This article was compiled by David Addy based upon material from "The British Brick Society" .

British Brick Society newsletter "Information No 26, April 2014,
Suffolk Heritage Explorer Reference ELV 174 and ELV 008
Suffolk Review, Vol 5, 1980 - 1988 on ‘Suffolk Brickmaking’ by Robert Malster. (Suffolk Local History Council, Summer 1983, Vol 5, No 4).
Great British Life Blog for 23rd December, 2022 for details of Edward Gibbons.
Suffolk Industrial Archaeology Society newsletter No 21, September, 1988, "Brick Kilns in Suffolk" by C J Pankhurst
Website - David Kitching's website - Brick Section
Website - Martyn Fretwell's blog on bricks etc
Photos of bricks by Martyn Fretwell unless stated.

Page created on 28th September, 2023

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