Stewartby is the last of the Bedfordshire brickworks.
The brickworks are internationally significant – at one time they were the largest brickworks in the world!
Stewartby brickworks was home to the world’s biggest Hoffman-style kiln and produced 18 million bricks at the height of production!
There have been brickworks chimneys at Stewartby since 189.
BJ Forder & Son opened the first brickworks in Wootton Pillinge in 1897. Forder brought in several partners, including Halley Stewart.
The Wootton Pillinge Brick Company, founded in 1901, was finally bought out by the London Brick Co during the slump of the early 1920s.
In 1937 Wootton Pillinge was renamed Stewartby in recognition of the Stewart family. It was built for the brick workers. It was a later and more modern development than other Victorian model villages, such as Titus Salt’s Saltaire, Bourneville in Birmingham, and Port Sunlight on Merseyside. Halley’s rare “moral capitalism” led him to improve the working and living environment of his brick makers – London Brick Co had its own ambulance, fire crews, a horticultural department and a photographic department, as well as its own swimming pool inside the factory, and ran a number of sports clubs!
Percy Stewart was brought into the business while still young, and eventually become one of Britain’s leading industrialists. Like his father, he believed in ploughing profits back into the industry in search of long-term capital growth, rather than seeking the quick return which so many public companies do nowadays.
At the height of the industry’s production there were 167 brick chimneys in the Marston Vale.
Stewartby brickworks was home to the world’s biggest kiln and over 2,000 people worked at the plant producing 500 million bricks a year. London Brick’s secret weapon was the “Fletton” brick, fired from Gault clay and later to become the standard building material throughout the southern part of England.
Geologically, this Lower Oxford Clay is made up of 5% seaweed and as this organic material burned when the clay was in the kiln, it reduced the need for coal, and also ensured the bricks were evenly-fired.
In the 1970s Bedfordshire produced 20% of England’s bricks.
The Hoffman Kiln was patented by a German engineer, Friedrich Hoffman, for brick-making in 1858 and Humphrey Chamberlain took out an English patent in 1868. Over time the design was improved and adapted. In the C20, the layout of the chambers was changed to form two rows, back to back in a regular rectangle. A special design for the Fletton brick industry incorporated additional flues for drying and warming and it is these versions which survive at Stewartby.
Now, only 4 chimneys remain at the Stewartby Brickworks along with two of the “Hoffman” type brick kilns. It produced their last bricks in February 2008, because the brickworks produced far too much pollution to comply with UK and EEC environmental regulations, despite more than £1 m being spent between 2005-7 in an attempt to reduce the sulphur dioxide emissions.
Read the entry on Historic England – HERE!
Stewartby, Bedfordshire, UK
Stewartby is the last of the Bedfordshire brickworks.
The brickworks are internationally significant – at one time they were the largest brickworks in the world!
Stewartby brickworks was home to the world’s biggest Hoffman-style kiln and produced 18 million bricks at the height of production!
There have been brickworks chimneys at Stewartby since 189.
BJ Forder & Son opened the first brickworks in Wootton Pillinge in 1897. Forder brought in several partners, including Halley Stewart.
The Wootton Pillinge Brick Company, founded in 1901, was finally bought out by the London Brick Co during the slump of the early 1920s.
In 1937 Wootton Pillinge was renamed Stewartby in recognition of the Stewart family. It was built for the brick workers. It was a later and more modern development than other Victorian model villages, such as Titus Salt’s Saltaire, Bourneville in Birmingham, and Port Sunlight on Merseyside. Halley’s rare “moral capitalism” led him to improve the working and living environment of his brick makers – London Brick Co had its own ambulance, fire crews, a horticultural department and a photographic department, as well as its own swimming pool inside the factory, and ran a number of sports clubs!
Percy Stewart was brought into the business while still young, and eventually become one of Britain’s leading industrialists. Like his father, he believed in ploughing profits back into the industry in search of long-term capital growth, rather than seeking the quick return which so many public companies do nowadays.
At the height of the industry’s production there were 167 brick chimneys in the Marston Vale.
Stewartby brickworks was home to the world’s biggest kiln and over 2,000 people worked at the plant producing 500 million bricks a year. London Brick’s secret weapon was the “Fletton” brick, fired from Gault clay and later to become the standard building material throughout the southern part of England.
Geologically, this Lower Oxford Clay is made up of 5% seaweed and as this organic material burned when the clay was in the kiln, it reduced the need for coal, and also ensured the bricks were evenly-fired.
In the 1970s Bedfordshire produced 20% of England’s bricks.
The Hoffman Kiln was patented by a German engineer, Friedrich Hoffman, for brick-making in 1858 and Humphrey Chamberlain took out an English patent in 1868. Over time the design was improved and adapted. In the C20, the layout of the chambers was changed to form two rows, back to back in a regular rectangle. A special design for the Fletton brick industry incorporated additional flues for drying and warming and it is these versions which survive at Stewartby.
Now, only 4 chimneys remain at the Stewartby Brickworks along with two of the “Hoffman” type brick kilns. It produced their last bricks in February 2008, because the brickworks produced far too much pollution to comply with UK and EEC environmental regulations, despite more than £1 m being spent between 2005-7 in an attempt to reduce the sulphur dioxide emissions.
Read the entry on Historic England – HERE!
Stewartby, Bedfordshire, UK
