The Workings of a Brickworks

This is the clay which has to be cut down and well watered before it can be used. A fine ash is mixed in to help with the firing of the bricks. Each cubic yard makes 1,000 bricks

It is then loaded into a skip and pushed by hand up to the hopper ramp and pulled by electric winch to the hopper

After it has been tipped into the hoper it is compressed and forced out into a sanded mould. It is them scapped off and sanded, them turned out onto a wooden plate and placed on a barrow. The moulds re made of Burmese teak. The machine is capable of making 600 bricks per hour

The barrow's are taken to be stacked. The bricks are stacked in rows 5 high and 6 wide with a gap in the middle. They are covered to stop the Sun from cracking them while they are drying. The rows are called hacks and the covers are called caps. The sides are called loos. The bricks take about 10 days to dry.

When the bricks are drythey are built up into a clamp. Ashes are layed as a bed to build on.

A clamp is built as shown in the picture with old bricks on the outside to help keep the heat in and some inside to help absord the moisture.

This is what a clamp is like after it has been fired and cooled. There are 70,000 bricks in a clamp.

This shows one of two ways of lighting a clamp

This shows a clamp covered and lit. The temperature gets up to 1,500 degrees centigrade. The glow could be seen from quite a distrance.

This shows how a clamp is finsihed off

Last few bricks to be stacked in the clamp and a view of the house.

Another view of the finishing of the clamp

The ashes and breeze are placed in the bottom to help with the burnng. The lighting hole has wood already in place.

This is the clay left after a season of brick making, about 140,000 bricks.

Now that the season is over all equipment is put away.

Ashes left after the end of the season

Barrow and Skip's mixer all stowed away ready for the next season