Various Woolpit brickworks c1886
Crossways or New Kiln Brick Works at Woolpit

The second 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.

The Crossways Brickworks

This is the second best known of the Woolpit brickworks as it began in 1783 and was still working until it closed in 1939.


New Kiln or Crossways brickworks
  • 1783-1805 Ambrose Cross
  • 1805-1839 Unknown
  • 1839-1853 Pilbrow and Fisher
  • 1853-1856 Pilbrow and Fisher, Frederick Fisher
  • 1856-1864 Frederick Fisher
  • 1865-1865 Fisher and Golding
  • 1865-1868 Unclear
  • 1868-1968 William Golding
  • 1869-1875 Arthur Golding
  • 1875-1879 Unclear
  • 1879-1892 Captain Philip Homer Page
  • 1892-1896 Unknown
  • 1896-1908 Philip Charles N Peddar
  • 1908-1912 Unknown
  • 1912-1925 George Randall
  • 1925-1939 James Cowlin and Sons
  • 1939 Works closed during the war and never reopened



An eye witness reported to Bill Blowers, and passed on by Graeme Perry in BBS Information 26 of 2014, information on Crossways Brickworks from 1921 to 1937. In 1925 George Randall sold the works to James Cowlin & sons, a firm of builders and contractors from Harlow in Essex.

The works made both red and white bricks, both standards and specials. All bricks were hand made. Land draiage pipes, pantiles, tiles and chimney pots were also made.

Two Suffolk Kilns had a 30,000 capacity each. The bricks were fired on low heat for three or four days, called "tanning" to fully dry them out. After this a full firing for two days and nights was followed by a week to cool down before unloading.

There were only 7 or 8 staff. Clay was dug from November to March and heaped up for the frosts to work.

Bricks were made from April to October depending on the weather.


Possible George Randall sample brick
 		Although the stamp is partly unclear on this brick, it comes from Woolpit, and most probably says "G R" standing for George Randall, who ran this yard from 1912 to 1925, and possibly a few years earlier than that.


This article was compiled by David Addy based 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 created on 24th August, 2023

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