Riddings Wall

A fellow brick collector in Ironville, told me about this wall on West Street, Riddings, Derbys. After asking the owner for permission to take photos, here are the results, with info. The wall is the house's boundary wall to the road, about 4 houses down West Street, so it very easy to find, but parking the car you have to go much further down the street because of yellow lines. They are nearly all local bricks & was constructed by the previous owner of the property.

Riddings bricks where made in Jacksdale, Notts, by James Oakes & Co. (Riddings Collieries) Ltd. He owned several collieries, a very large iron works, situated next to the Cromford Canal and on another site next to Pye Hill Colliery, he manufactured clay pipes and bricks. The Oakes family lived at nearby Riddings House, an 80 acre estate in Riddings, Derbyshire. Nothing is left to see, on either site, to remind us of these glory days of manufacturing, only his bricks!

The Alfreton Brick Company were in operation by 1895 & their brickworks was situated off Alma Street on land which today is partly industrial and part Alfreton Town's football ground. Sometime between 1916 & Kelly's 1922 edition when they are listed as the Alfreton Brick and Tile Co. Ltd., works; Mansfield Road, Alfreton, the company had relocated to James Lawrence's works on Meadow Lane, just off Mansfield Road in Alfreton. The last trade directory for A. B. & T. Co. is Kelly's 1928 edition.

Edwin Glossop's brickworks at Ambergate had its own railway siding connecting the main line at nearby Bullbridge, to transport his bricks wide & far. Clay for his bricks was transported via tramway from quarries up the hill to the east of his works. The brickworks is last recorded on a map for 1980. Houses are now built where Edwin's brickworks once stood.

Link to photo of works.  

http://www.archive-images.co.uk/index.gallery.php?gid=191&img=16

Charles James Saunders was the owner of Collieries near Chesterfield & produced bricks at Storforth Lane, Hasland between 1887 to 1941 & at Newbold between 1887 to1908. I have a mining reference to him owning a pit near Alfreton called Brockwell in 1937, were he could have made this brick, but I have also found that there is a Brockwell Lane in Chesterfield, so this could be the location for his pit ?

Salterwood pit & brickworks was near Denby, Derbyshire & was owned by the Denby Iron & Coal Company. The pit closed in 1920 & the brickworks remained open until a date unknown (around 1970's/80's) & was owned by the Butterley Brick Company when it closed.

Updated 21.3.15. 

I now believe this brick was made by the Park Foundry Company in Belper, who are listed as brickmakers in Kelly's 1899 edition. It may have only been around 1899 that the company made bricks as it's core business was to be in producing solid-fuel appliances. 

The Park Foundry Co. was founded in 1850 & was registered in 1900. The company is then recorded in 1949 as being part of the Radiation Company making the Siesta stove at Belper.

The company later traded under the Parkray name & was then taken over by Tube Investments, then Hepworth. The Belper stove works closed in 2003.

A report from the London Gazette 1892, states that Solomon Beardsley and William Pounder, brickmakers of Ilkeston, are dissolving their company by mutual consent from the 29th day of January, 1892. All debts due to and owing by the said late firm will be received and paid by the said Solomon Beardsley.—Dated this 29th day of January 1892. 

Also, Solomon Beardsley of St Mary Street, Ilkeston is recorded in Kelly's Trade Directory for 1888 as brickmaker.

T. Slack of Green Hillocks, Ripley, was a brick and tile maker between 1860 and 1864.

John Bakewell, brickmaker of Birchwood, Somercotes, is first recorded in  Whites 1857 Directory followed by Kelly's 1864 edition through to the 1900 edition. It's in Kelly's 1904 edition that it is first recorded as J. Bakewell & Son & then again in 1908. In the 1912 edition the owners of the works are now recorded as Bakewell Bros. with another works at South Normanton near Alfreton. The 1916 edition onwards only records the Somercotes works & 1925 is the last entry for the brothers.

William Henry Slater and Joseph Slater had two brickworks, one on Uttoxeter Old Road, Derby, operating between 1860 and 1887 and in Denby between 1874 and 1941. 

James Lawrence is recorded in the 1911 census as a brickmaker - employer in Alfreton, previously he had been a miner & I have established he owned the Mansfield Road Brickworks (actually on Meadow Lane & next to the colliery) from the mid 1890's to possibly the early 1920's when the Alfreton Brick Company are first listed at this works in Kelly's 1922 edition.

This could have been made by Charles Shelton & Son of Waingroves, Ripley who is recorded in Kelly's Trade Directory for 1891. I have found another one of his bricks stamped with Ripley in the reverse & is very similar.