Various Woolpit brickworks c1886
Kiln Farm Brick Works at Woolpit

The best known of four Woolpit works

Four Woolpit Brickworks

Four brickmaking sites are known in Woolpit:

  1. Kiln Farm Brick Kilns, operative from 1819 to 1948;
  2. a brickworks known variously as New Kiln or Crossways Brickworks/Brickyard, records for which show use between 1783 and 1939;
  3. a brickworks at Kiln Lane in use between 1844 and 1916;
  4. Old Kiln, Kiln Lane, first recorded in 1573 and in use until at least 1892.

Kiln Farm Brickworks

This is the best known of the Woolpit brickworks as it began in 1819 and was still working until it closed in 1948.

The Kiln Farm Brick Kilns operated under the name Woolpit Brick & Tile Company Limited between 1883 and 1937 and as Suffolk Brickworks (Woolpit) Ltd from 1937 to 1948 when it closed. This is the works marked on the 1885 map as "Woolpit Works".


Woolpit Brickmakers
  • 1819 Thomas Abraham Cocksedge
  • 1820 John Caldecott, William Caldecott
  • 1820-1855 William Caldecott
  • 1855-1858 William Caldecott, Cawston Stutter
  • 1858-1868 Cawston Stutter
  • 1869-1879 Thomas Plowman
  • 1879-1883
  • 1883-1937 Woolpit Brick & Tile Co Limited
  • 1883-1892
  • 1892-1896 John Berry (manager)
  • 1896-1900
  • 1900-1916 Sidney James Clay (manager)
  • 1916-1933
  • 1933 Harry Helliwell (manager)
  • 1933-1937
  • 1937-1939 Suffolk Brickworks (Woolpit) Ltd - Manager R B Price
  • 1940-1945 Works closed during the war
  • 1946-1948 Suffolk Brickworks (Woolpit) Ltd
  • 1948 --- Works closed


Brick of C Stutter 1858-1868
 		This brick, photo by Martyn Fretwell courtesy of Museum of East Anglian Life, is by Cawston Stutter who was at Kiln Farm works from 1858 to 1868, although from 1855 he had previously been in partnership with William Caldecott.

Brick of Thom Plowman 1869-1879
 		Thomas Plowman ran this works immediately after Cawston Stutter from 1869 to at least 1879.

Kiln Farm Brickyard close up
 		The largest and best known of Woolpit brickyards, with eye witness reports from the late 1930s.

In 1937 to 1939 there were three Hoffman type kilns in use, producing both red and white bricks, although at this time very few whites were made. A steam driven pug mill processed the clay, which was moulded into bricks by hand and also by a Berry type brick making machine. Bricks took a week to dry on steam heated floors, or in summer they might be dried on the outdoor hakes.

There were about 40 staff, of whom 12 were hand moulders, 12 were in the clay pits, 5 on the kilns, 3 on the Berry machine, and 5 or 6 lads. Only one of the hand moulders worked on white bricks.

In 1939 or 1940 the works was requisitioned and closed for the duration of the war.

The brickworks reopened in 1946, but there were no more hand mouldings made and all bricks were now machine made. There were now only 20 or 22 staff, of whome there were 9 brickmakers, 8 clay diggers, 2 brick burners and 2 boilermen. Three brick machines had 3 men each, producing 8000 bricks a day per machine. All production was now red bricks only, with no special mouldings at all. Only two kilns were in use.

This brickworks closed in 1948.


Sample red and white bricks
 		This shows samples of Woolpit red and white bricks.

Sample red and white bricks after 1925
 		BCM stands for British Commercial Monomarks, a company formed in 1925 to provide manufacturers with a London address and mail forwarding service. Anyone wishing to send in an order for more bricks could merely write to BCM/WLPT, knowing that it would be forwarded by BCM to the correct address. It could be looked on as a sort of early postcode.


Woolpit brick works by Sybil Andrews c1932
 		The artists' view

For a time in the 1930s Woolpit was a holiday home for Sybil Andrews, Cyril Power and friends. They produced monotypes of the works, a much quicker process than their later interest in linocuts.


Woolpit brick works by Cyril Power c1932
 		Both artists were becoming impressed by the sights and sounds of industrial processes, and the speed of modern life.

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

British Brick Society newsletter "Information No 26", April 2014,
Website - David Kitching's website - Brick Section
Website - Martyn Fretwell's blog on bricks etc
Photos of bricks by Martyn Fretwell courtesy of Museum of East Anglian Life.

Page first created on 24th August, 2023

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