Visited with Randomnut and Jim
I've covered the site before at the end of last year so my aim of returning was to show Randomnut how great and overlooked Stewartby is.
As i have hundreds of pictures of this place from my past explore i concentrated on some HDR pictures. I'm new to the whole HDR thing and still very much learning.
My Pictures
Matt
I've covered the site before at the end of last year so my aim of returning was to show Randomnut how great and overlooked Stewartby is.
Stewartby brickworks was home to the world’s biggest kiln and produced 18 million bricks at the height of production.
BJ Forder & Son opened the first brickworks in Wootton Pillinge in 1897.
Wootton Pillinge was renamed Stewartby in 1937 in recognition of the Stewart family who had been instrumental in developing the brickworks.
The firm became London Brick Company and Forders Limited in 1926, and shortened to London Brick Company in 1936.
At the height of the industry’s production there were 167 brick chimneys in the Marston Vale.
In the 1970s Bedfordshire produced 20% of England’s bricks.
At its peak London Brick Company had its own ambulance and 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.
More than £1 million was spent on Stewartby Brickworks in 2005-7 in an attempt to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions.
The factory used Lower Oxford Clay, which is made up of 5% seaweed, formed 150 million years ago when it was on the sea bed. This removed the need to add coal to the fire, as the organic material burned.
The site closed on 29th February 2008, resulting in the loss of 217 jobs and bringing down the curtain on over a century of brickmaking in the Marston Vale, which in the boom times was home to the largest brickfields in the world.
As i have hundreds of pictures of this place from my past explore i concentrated on some HDR pictures. I'm new to the whole HDR thing and still very much learning.
My Pictures
Matt