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Brick making in Stoke-on-Trent
Brickworks in the Potteries:-
Henry Warrington & Son at the Berry Hill brickworks.
There was a brickworks on this site by the 1870's when it was in the hands of William Bowers. In the 1960's it was still in operation and belonged to the Berry Hill Brickworks Ltd. who also owned the Clanway Brickworks in Tunstall. In the 1920's the berry Hill Brickworks was the largest of its kind in North Staffordshire.
Tunstall
By 1817 Tunstall was noted for ins manufacturer of 'a superior kind of blue tile'. Staffordshire blue bricks were also made and used in paving the side-walks of the newly laid out street.
By the late 1820's Thomas Peak in Watergate Street and Robert Shufflebotham at Clayhills were making bricks and tiles.
By 1834 there were 5 manufacturers in the area.
Peake's works were the largest and used steam-driven engines for crushing and preparing the clay.Thomas Peake's son John Nash Peake (b.1837 d.1905) succeeded his father in 1861 - by the time of his death in 1905 he had doubled the size of the works and with 35 ovens and kilns were one of the largest manufacturers in the country.
John Nash Peake was a noted public figure and, for many years, was the leader of the Liberal Party in North Staffordshire.
There is a street in the clayhills area of Tunstall named 'Nash Peake Street'By the 1890's there were some 5 brick and tile works in the area.
In the late 1950's there were brickworks at Clanway and Colclough Lane.
Burslem
Bricks and tiles were produced in the Dale Hall area by at least 1761, and the Basford family were making tiles there for at least 50 years from the 1830's.
By the middle of the 19th century there were 8 brick and tile works in the area and some 11 towards the end. By the 1950's this had increased to 20.
In the 1960's operating brickworks included the Sneyd Brickworks in Nile Street, the brickworks between Waterloo road and Sneyd Street and the Brookfields Saggar, Brick and Works to the south-west, all these dating from at least the 1870's.
The works of the Cobridge Brick and Marl Company off Leek Road has been in existence since at least the end of the 19th century.see a 1893 advertisement article for The Sneyd Colliery and Brickworks Company, Ltd
Hanley
There were about 5 brick and tile works in the area by the early 1830's; about 8 in the 1890's and about 12 in the 1950's.
By the mid 1860's the Hallfield Brick Works had been established near the site of the former Hallfield Colliery on the high ground east of the town. By the end of the 19th century it had moved to Festing Street where it was still in operation in the 1960's.
Fenton
There was a brickworks at Trentham Sough on the Fletcher estate by 1783. Between late April and early October 1783 266,362 bricks were produced 'for Earl Gower's use'
In 1818 there was one brickworks at the Lane Delph area of Fenton.
By the 1850's there were 4 brickworks which had rose to 6 by the early 1890's.
In 1959 bricks were made by D Duddell Ltd. at the Oldfield brick and Marl Works and by J. Hewitt & Sons (Fenton) Ltd. who aklso had a quarry at Fenton Manor