Monument record 0101100000 - LITTLEWORTH HAMLET

The blue clay beds were worked in 1859 by Mr Richard Harris for extensive manufacture of bricks, draining pipes, tiles etc. Brick making is still carried on here (B1-2).
'Brick Field','Clay Pit','Kiln' marked on OS 1880 map. Kilns sheds are also shown on the OS 1st Edition 6in map (B3).
Works no longer in operation. Whole area now developed for housing (B4).

A 19th century brickworks and brickfield is visible on historic aerial photographs and remote sensing data as earthworks and was mapped as part of the Aylesbury Vale Aerial Investigation and Mapping project (EBC18604). Located on the west side of Soulbury Road in former Littleworth (now part of Wing village) and centred at SP 88103 23288, the brickworks comprises a large irregularly shaped extractive brickfield pit that covers an area about 19,787 square metres. Within this are several buildings and a kiln, as well as a deeper irregularly shaped clay or brick earth pit about 4,150 square metres in area. This site is recorded on the 1880 dated 1st edition OS map. From the road, four variously sized buildings are aligned end-to-end along the north boundary that are likely to have been for brick production, processing and drying. Adjacent to these buildings one brick kiln is depicted in 1880, to which a second structure of identical size and shape is constructed by 1899, which is presumed to also be a kiln. In the NW corner of the site is a rectangular waterfilled ditch, pond or tank about 32 x 11 metres, its long side aligned along the site’s WSW-ENE northern boundary. Between 1925 and 1944, 5 additional large rectangular pitched roof buildings are added to the site, one about 44 x 9 metres that is likely to be another brick drying shed. Between 1947 and 1949, two further adjacent rectangular buildings, each about 21 x 14.56 metres, were constructed on the site, though the function is uncertain. Two of the 19th century buildings are demolished between 1944 and 1947 as the brickworks appears to continue in brick production in the mid-20th century. A second clay pit is contiguous to the northern boundary of the brick works. Centred at SP 88101 23368 it is irregularly shaped and about 9,319 square metres in area. It appears to truncate a large area of 19th century allotments. Not shown on the 1880 dated 1st Edition OS map, the extraction area is shown on the 1899 dated 2nd Edition OS map as an ‘Old Clay Pit’. The brickworks’ buildings remain extant on aerial photographs taken in 1961, but by 1976 all the remaining 19th century and early 20th century buildings and the kilns have been demolished. All that remains visible are the two buildings constructed 1947-1949, though large holes are visible in their roofs, suggesting abandonment. The deep extractive pit within the site is also nearly fully filled in at this time. The clay pit to the north of the site has also being filled in and levelled by this time and has a large vehicle park area constructed on it, as well as some new rectangular (agricultural/industrial?) buildings. By 1991, new residential development of Chesterfield Crescent has been constructed over both parts of the site and on aerial photographs taken in 2022 and recent remote sensing data, no evidence for the brickworks is visible apart from the southern edge of the former brickfield, which appears to remain as an irregular slope within the wooded border of the housing estate (5-16).