Beehive Brick Kiln at Hoxne
Introduction to the processes of Brick making

Through the Ages

Brick making in Suffolk

Today the great industrial production of bricks is in Leicestershire with the Ibstock group in the northwest of that county and Forterra's at Desford in Leicestershire, and at their Staffordshire factory near Tamworth. However, this was far from the case in early times.

Pevsner noted that “for English brick, Suffolk is exceptionally important”.
In the book Brick Building in England, author Jane Wight notes in the introduction that “overwhelmingly the most important counties for old brick are Norfolk and Essex, followed by Suffolk”.

It has been assumed that the English lost the art of brick making after the Romans left and the Dark and Middle ages were characterised by other materials as well as some re-use of Roman brick. Brickmaking continued on the continent and with the proximity of East Anglia to the continent it is always possible that bricks were imported, notably from Flanders.

Pevsner says that “In the standard literature there is in fact no reference to home-made bricks earlier than those at Little Coggeshall Abbey in Essex of c1225. But Suffolk possesses at Polstead (c1160) a church with Norman brick arches inside which are not Roman, and can in all probability be considered of English make.... These bricks are followed by those at Little Wenham Hall of c1270...and at Herringfleet Priory of c1300 - still extremely early dates as far as England is concerned”.

Pevsner also notes that “Suffolk is one of the best counties in which to enjoy Tudor brickwork” and that as well as red bricks some parts of Suffolk produced white bricks. Some can be seen at Little Wenham Hall and many more from 1525 - 1538 at Hengrave Hall". “But the heyday of white bricks was the C19, when an important centre of production was Woolpit; a great many can be seen in the Ipswich neighbourhood”.

Ipswich, the County’s largest commercial centre, also has a long history of brickmaking. Among the Ipswich probate mentions of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries published by the Suffolk Records Society in 1981 is one relating to Henry Wiseman, brickstriker, dated 1589.

By the middle of the nineteenth century the brickmaking industry in Suffolk had achieved a more than local significance, because with the advantage of convenient water transport and later by making use of the railways, some of the County’s larger brickmaking concerns played a large part in supplying the needs of builders outside the region. It is well established that brickworks in the Sudbury area, notably that at Ballingdon owned in the earlier part of the nineteenth century by Robert Allen, sent bricks down the Stour by lighter from which they were transhipped at Mistley quay into sailing barges for the coastwise journey to London. There they were used in the construction of many large buildings including the Royal Albert Hall and the South Kensington museums.

Brickworks in Sudbury included the Victoria Brickworks off Bulmer Road, the California Brickworks on Gallows Hill and the Alexandra Brickworks in Newton Road at Chilton.

Brickworks made good use of the railways. Elmswell, the Grove Brickworks at Ipswich and Dukes Brickworks from a line at Westerfield (Dukes was in production until 1959). Valley Brickworks in Foxhall Road (later Celestion and Bull Motors, now residential) also had sidings of its own as did the brickworks at Leiston.

In the 19th century almost every village, and certainly every town, in Suffolk had its own brickworks. The evidence is still there in the countryside where the bustling brick industry left behind reminders in the form of overgrown pits in fields and woods, and sometimes the ruins of disused brick kilns.

One of the last brickworks to close in Suffolk was Hall Farm Brickworks in Aldeburgh, which began in 1840, and closed under the ownership of WC Reade, who ran the business from 1926-2011. The company was fortunate to have its own railway line running down to a jetty on the bank of the river Alde.

The Bulmer Brick and Tile Company near Sudbury, but over the Stour in Cambridgeshire, still makes traditional Suffolk bricks from London clay, which has been extracted from the same seam almost continually since Tudor times.


Excavating old claypit at Barnham 2023
 		Brick earth and the clay pits

Importance for Paleontology

Brickearth is essentially a soft rock material, a silty clay which contains some sand. Chalk underlies the whole county of Suffolk and, over time, different deposits have varied the composition of brickearth. Overlying the chalk in south Suffolk and coastal areas are sands and clays deposited about 50 million years ago - this is 'London clay', so called because it is the type that lays 132 metres thick under the city of London, and supports tunnels and deep foundations.

Towards the Suffolk coast, this was overlaid by sands and clays known as crag about 2 million years ago, followed by glacial clays some 50,000 years ago.

Most clay deposits around northern West Suffolk tend to come from the Hoxnian inter-glacial period, which started 424,000 years ago and ended 374,000 years ago. These deposits tend to be on a much smaller scale than the London Clay, arising sometimes from glacial melt water lakes and their sediments. However, it is these clay pits which have yielded profuse evidence of the activity of early man. The whole period derives its names from the clay deposits dug at Hoxne, and the many flint hand axes and other artefacts found in the clay.


A flint handaxe illustrated by John Frere
 		John Frere and first recognition of early man

In 1797, Hoxne near Eye in East Suffolk could have become a site famous for remains of flint tools. On June 22nd, 1797, John Frere wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Society of Antiquaries describing finds of elephant bones, and flint tools. He seems to have seen these as early as 1790, dug out of a claypit by workmen. He wrote:

"They are, I think, evident weapons of war, fabricated and used by a people who had not the use of metals. They lay in great numbers at the depth of about twelve feet, in a stratified soil, which was dug into for the purpose of raising clay for bricks......
In the same stratum are frequently found small fragments of wood, very perfect when first dug up, but which soon decompose on being exposed to the air; and in the stratum of sand (No. 3), were found some extraordinary bones, particularly a jawbone of enormous size, of some unknown animal, with the teeth remaining in it......
The situation in which these weapons were found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed; even beyond that of the present world; but, whatever our conjectures on that head may be, it will be difficult to account for the stratum in which they lie being covered with another stratum, which, on that supposition, may be conjectured to have been once the bottom, or at least the shore, of the sea. "

Frere's paper was read to the Society of Antiquaries in 1800, but caused little or no, comment at the time. Not until the time of Charles Darwin were people generally able to consider their own origins other than as descendants from Adam and Eve, and it was then that Frere's work was revived. Today, this site is considered so important that it gives its name to the Hoxnian Interglacial period.

Frere himself was born in 1740 at Roydon Hall, near Diss, but lived at Finningham. As a country squire he followed the pursuits of a gentleman of his day, with a particular interest in antiquities. At the time it was generally believed that interpretation of the Bible could show that the world was created on October 23rd, 4004 BC. This idea was put forward by the Archbishop of Armargh, James Ussher (1581-1656), in the 1650's. The calculation was included in the authorised bibles issued after 1701, and accepted as fact. Despite this, Frere believed that his finds were older than this. He understood the importance of stratigraphy, and recognised that these people had relied entirely upon natural resources without the knowledge of metals.


Brick making in Bury St Edmunds and surroundings

There were three main brickworks in the immediate Bury St Edmunds area but there were other small works to the east, south, and west of the town.

There were also a number of addresses for accommodation and/or sales offices listed in the town’s various trade directories. There were a number of brickworks beyond the town, particularly to the east of Bury St Edmunds: at Great Barton; on the Rougham Estate; at Elmswell ; and four at Woolpit. The Rougham Estate was a significant producer of bricks and there were huge works at Woolpit spanning 450 years. A small museum was established in the village dedicated to the industry.

The principal Bury St Edmunds brickworks were the Eastgate Brickworks in Hollow Road; the Southgate Brickworks in Nowton Road; and the Westley Road Brickworks, Westley Road.

These works are all listed and considered separately on the brickmaking homepage.

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

Suffolk Review, Vol 5, 1980 - 1988 on ‘Suffolk Brickmaking’ by Robert Malster. (Suffolk Local History Council, Summer 1983, Vol 5, No 4).
British Brick Society newsletter "Information No 26, April 2014,
Pathways to Ancient Britain website

Page created on 17th August, 2023

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