Monument record 0579301000 - LBC BRICKWORKS

1984 MAP MARKS 'BRICKWORKS' CENTRED AT NGR (B6). IN 1930'S THE NEW WORKS ERECTED ON OPPOSITE SIDE OF ROAD TO OLD WORKS (00:000). IN 1975 THE WORKS MADE 4.25 MILLION BRICKS A WEEK, EMPLOYING 375 MEN (B5). WORKS CLOSED IN AUTUMN 1990. SITE'S FUTURE UNCERTAIN (B7). 2 CHIMNEYS & MOST BUILDINGS REMAIN (B8).

A post-medieval and 20th century brickworks is visible on historic aerial photographs and was mapped as part of the North Buckinghamshire Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18304). Located south of the railway line between Newton Longville and Bletchley and centred at SP 85293 32299, a brickyard was owned in 1890 by Thomas Dodd until the late 1920s, when it was taken over by the London Brick Company, who then greatly extended the operations during the 1930s, with numerous kilns and chimneys. During the Second World War, the Ministry of Supply established an ordnance depot at the site, storing large quantities of ammunition in the kilns. In 1993, the London Brick Company ceased production and the chimneys were demolished. However, land filling of the site commenced by the start of the 1970s by the London Brick Company, which then continued following the closure of the brickworks by its new owners. On aerial photographs taken in 2015 and 2019 and recent remote sensing data, these features have been filled-in, levelled and re-purposed as both a sports field (now apparently disused) and part of a much larger landfill site. The extent of the brickworks’ clay extraction mapped from aerial photographs taken in 1946 show that it covered about 341,767 square metres in area, with a further area immediately to the south about 85,879 square metres in area. At that time, clay was being extracted from fields that were likely covered in medieval or post-medieval ridge and furrow cultivation earthworks, as fragmentary islands of ridge and furrow are still visible within the brickworks area. The expanding boundary of the brickworks also show it is truncating blocks of ridge and furrow (9-13)