The Colliery Yearbook & Coal Trades Directory did not list NCB brickworks in 1947, 1948 or 1949 but did list them from 1953. I have not been able to consult the editions from 1950 to 1952 to find out what year the brickworks began to be listed.


I checked various 1950s editions of the Guide to the Coalfields. None listed NCB brickworks, only naming the divisional brickworks managers.

I checked the south Wales portions of various editions 1950s of the Directory of Quarries, Clay Pits & Brickworks (the title kept changing the order of the words between editions). NCB owned brickworks were, to my surprise, not listed. Only one brickworks owned by British Anthracite was listed - Llangennech, near Llanelli in Carmarthenshire, which was listed under Glamorgan because the registered office of British Anthracite was in Swansea.

So it looks as if the Colliery Yearbook & Coal Trades Directory will provide the most accessible lists of NCB owned brickworks.

Thanks for taking the trouble to look into the sources. Much appreciated. :thumbup:

Now all I have to do is find where I can consult some early 1950s editions of the Colliery Yearbook & Coal Trades Directory?

The city / large town libraries in former coalfields are your best bet. The volumes might be in reserve storage and not all friont counter staff may know they exist and they might not be on the computer catalogue.

Here's the Scottish NCB brickworks from 'Brick, Tile and Fireclay Industries in Scotland':

Annbank Brickworks,
Auchenlea Quarries and Brickworks,
Bank Brickworks,
Blairadam Brickworks,
Blantyreferme Brickworks,
Buccleuch Terra Cotta Works,
Brucefield Brickworks,
Callander Brick and Fireclay Works,
Dunaskin Brickworks,
Fauldhead Brickworks,
Gartshore Brickworks,
Gateshead Brickworks,
Lochgelly Brickworks,
Meta Brickworks,
Newton Brickworks,
Newbattle Brickworks,
Niddrie Brickworks,
Northfield Brickworks,
Prestongrange Brick, Tile and Fireclay Works,
Roslin Brickworks,
Skares Brickworks,
Whitehill Brickworks.

Was there an official List of Quarries from about 1950? The last I have seen was I think 1937, but I am sure I have seen refs to a later one somewhere. Presumably most brickworks would have their source of clay in either that or the 1948/49 lists of mines, though obviously not necessarily specifying brickworks in the list.

Was there an official List of Quarries from about 1950? The last I have seen was I think 1937, but I am sure I have seen refs to a later one somewhere. Presumably most brickworks would have their source of clay in either that or the 1948/49 lists of mines, though obviously not necessarily specifying brickworks in the list.

Yes, not sure what you mean by "official" but there was (and possibly still is) an annual list published by Quarry Management Magazine/Quarry Managers Journal.

Not sure if this included brickworks, definitely Quarries, Sand and Gravel in there.

The governmental List of Quarries (similar to the List of Mines) was last published in 'full' format in 1938 (year from memory) but a single post-war edition was issued in typescript form in 1948.

The Directory of Quarries, Pits and Brickworks (see upthread for info on varying titles) was issued roughly every 2 or 3 years from the mid 1920s to 1973, there was then a c.10 year gap, after which it was relaunched covering quarries only with no information on brickworks, and has been published down to the present roughly every other year.

For other directory type publications that covered brickworks, see upthread.

The Directory of Quarries after 1973, the offical List of Quarries and the Official List of Mines include a great many pits, quarries and mines that produced clay for brickworks but did not state which brickworks the clay / shale / etc was used in.

I still haven't managed to access any of the suggested editions of the Colliery Year Book. Below is the provisional list of brickworks that I have managed to identify with the help of this forum. Still quite a few missing and the odd uncertain entry. Please do add to this.

At vesting day in 1947 the National Coal Board became owners of 83 brickworks and 2 pipe works associated with collieries.
1961 - NCB had 62 brickworks

England

Ackton Hall
Annesley
AW - Ackers Whitley
Axwell Park
Bearpark
Birch Coppice
Blaydon Burn (Cowen's Firebrick Works)
Boldon
Brancepeth
Brandon
Cramlington
Desford
Gadbury
Garesfield (High Spen)
Hamstead
Hednesford
Hetton Lyons
Hic-Bibi
Hickleton
Hilton Main
Kirkby
L-B-W (Lofthouse?)
Lambton
Leasingthorne
Lilley
Malton
Mickley
Mitford
Murton
Nook
Nunnery
Sacriston
Seaham
Sherwood
Shotton
South Moor (Charley Pit)
Stephenson
Throckley?
Upton
Watnall
Welbeck
Whitwick
Wombwell
Wylam


NCB Ancillaries (Whittlesea) Limited

Here's the Scottish NCB brickworks from 'Brick, Tile and Fireclay Industries in Scotland':

Annbank Brickworks,
Auchenlea Quarries and Brickworks,
Bank Brickworks,
Blairadam Brickworks,
Blantyreferme Brickworks,
Buccleuch Terra Cotta Works,
Brucefield Brickworks,
Callander Brick and Fireclay Works,
Dunaskin Brickworks,
Fauldhead Brickworks,
Gartshore Brickworks,
Gateshead Brickworks,
Lochgelly Brickworks,
Meta Brickworks,
Newton Brickworks,
Newbattle Brickworks,
Niddrie Brickworks,
Northfield Brickworks,
Prestongrange Brick, Tile and Fireclay Works,
Roslin Brickworks,
Skares Brickworks,
Whitehill Brickworks.

Other NCB works in Scotland?

Wallyford
Shotts


Wales

NCB Coedely
NCBOnllwyn
NCBTredegar

Other NCB works in Wales

Ammanford

Were not Emlyn and Cwmgorse making bricks after 1961?

Emlyn worked until 2000, from 1990 as ' Castle Bricks'. It was never nationalised as the colliery had closed before WW2 and the NCB only took over brickworks along with working collieries (and then only if the owners requested it - the same applied to other non-coal mining subsidiary activities such as railway wagon repairing, patent fuel works, etc.).

Offhand I do not know either the ownership details of closure date of Cwmgorse Brickworks - though I ought to, as family members worked there.

I believe that, latterly, British Anthracite (a wholly-owned NCB subsidiary) bought some other south Wales brickworks besides those listed. The company had begun, I think, as a railway wagon repairing company (and anthracite marketing company?), set up by the NCB a while after nationalisation.

British Anthracite bought Cynghordy and Goodwick Brickworks quite late - certainly no earlier than the late 1950s and probably in the 1960s.

I'll see if I can find more detail on Cwmgorse and on British Anthracite.

Graigfawr,
Are you,or were you from the Cwmgorse area?
As i was from just down the road from you,Rhyd y fro.

Cwmgorse Colliery closed 1964,not sure about the Brickworks,but when i started as an apprentice Brickie in 1970,it was all knocked down then,as the builder i worked for had purchased the old stocks of bricks,

And i also used Emlyn bricks up until i finished on the buildings 1975 to go to work in the Smallmines.

@Ty Gwyn: my grandmother came from Lower Brynamman; various family members lived in the Waun and Cwmgors. :offtopic:

Emlyn bricks made from second and third rate colliery shale tips: the roughest bricks I've ever handled - fit only for footings and other work never to see the light of day! That was why, when the Aeron-Thomas family sold Emlyn Brickworks around 1990, the new owner adopted a completely new name, Castle Bricks, to differentiate his brick made from blends of clays from open-cast sites such as Ffos Las. 😉

I've been able to check some directories:

In the 1937 and 1941/2 editions of the Directory of Quarries, Cwmgorse Brickworks is owned by Amalgamated Anthracite Collieries Ltd. The works is not listed in various 1950s editions of this directory.

In the Industrial Directory of Wales, published intermittently from 1948 to the early 1980s, British Anthracite Sales Ltd owned Ammanford, Cwmgorse, Goodwick and Trimsaran Brickworks in 1948, 1952 and 1956. British Anthracite Co Ltd owned these four brickworks plus Cynghordy Brickworks in 1960, 1964 and 1968. By the 1975 edition it had become British Fuel Co (South Wales) Ltd and was described as 'brick manufacturers' (mongst other activities) but the individual works were no longer listed. The continued listing of all five works down to 1968 suggests that the entry was not being revised to reflect closures of individual brickworks.

The publication Who Owns Whom (annual from 1959) reveals in the 1961 edition that the British Anthracite Co Ltd was a subsidiary of Amalgamated Anthracite Holdings Ltd. By the 1982 edition British Anthracite Sales Ltd was a subsidiary of the British Fuel Co Ltd which in turn was a subsidiary of Amalgamaed Anthracite Partners Ltd which in turn was a subsidiary of A.A.Holdings Ltd.

So I was WRONG: British Anthracite was NOT an NCB subsidiary. 😞 Instead, it was a subsidiary of the residual portion of Amalgamated Anthracite that was not nationalised in 1947 (in much the same way that Powel Duffryn continued to operate after 1947 - including brickworks at Aberdare / Aberamman).

And whilst I was correct in recalling that British Anthracite bought Cynghordy Brickworks well into the 1950s, I was WRONG in my recollection that it had bought Goodwick equally late. 😞

British Anthracite Sales Ltd (another Amalgamated Anthracite post-1947 subsidiary) at Swansea acted as sales agents and factors for the Llangennech Brickworks but as far as I know they did not own the works and it remained independent of Amalgamated Anthracite until closure in the mid to late 1960s.

Aplogies for confusing things in an earlier post - that'll teach me to post from hazy memory! :-[

@Tarboat: the above directory entries suggest that you need to remove Ammanford Brickworks and the three British Anthracite brickworks that you listed from your impressive list of NCB brickworks. It looks like only the three works you listed with NCB in front of them were actually NCB-owned brickworks. Hopefully this information allows you to complete the south Wales part of your list.

@Tarboat: the above directory entries suggest that you need to remove Ammanford Brickworks and the three British Anthracite brickworks that you listed from your impressive list of NCB brickworks. It looks like only the three works you listed with NCB in front of them were actually NCB-owned brickworks. Hopefully this information allows you to complete the south Wales part of your list.

Thanks for that, I shall amend the list accordingly.

National Coal Board Bricks

One of the largest brick manufacturers in Britain was created by the nationalisation of the coal industry in Britain which meant that many of the brickworks associated with collieries came into public ownership. At vesting day in 1947 the National Coal Board thus became owner of eighty-three brickworks and two pipe works employing 2943 people and producing about 10 per cent of the total British output of bricks. The brickworks varied widely in age, type and size. The largest, Niddrie brickworks in the Scottish division, produced over 25 million bricks in 1952, while twenty-nine works had outputs of less than 5 million bricks. Of these three were in Wales, twenty in Scotland, and the rest in England. By 1951 the NCB was operating seventy-five brickworks with a total output of 473 million bricks or 8 per cent of the national output in that year. New works were opened at Skares in 1954, Desford and Throckley both in 1963, and Callander in 1968, whilst some of the others were either modernised or closed entirely.

For the first fifteen years each brickworks was the responsibility of the relevant colliery manager until it was realised that they were not necessarily qualified or interested in producing bricks. It was in 1962 that the National Coal Board Brickworks Executive was set up as a separately managed division with 62 brickworks. The Brickworks Executive lasted until 1971 by which time the remaining brickworks had either been closed or transferred to private ownership. Many of the Scottish works seem to have gone to the Scottish Brick Corporation in 1969.

So far I have identified a total of 91 NCB owned brickworks between 1947 and 1971. These comprise 60 in England, 28 in Scotland and 3 in Wales. I would welcome any additions or corrections to the list below.

England

Ackton Hall
Annesley
Ansley Hall
Ashington
Axwell Park
Backworth (1954)
Bearpark
Bickershaw - AW - Ackers Whitley
Birch Coppice
Blaydon Burn (Cowen's Firebrick Works)
Boldon
Brancepeth
Brandon
Cronton
Desford (1963)
Dinnington
East Cramlington
Ellenbroook (1954)
Gadbury
Garesfield (High Spen)
Hamstead
Hednesford
Hetton Lyons
Hic-Bibi
Hickleton
Hilton Main
Kirkby
L-B-W (Lofthouse?)
Lambton
Leasingthorne
Lilley Drift
Londonderry
Malton
Mickley (West Wylam)
Mitford (1961)
Murton
Newbold Pipeworks "Lescol"
Nook
Nunnery
Pegswood
Radcliffe (Amble)
Rising Sun
Sacriston
Seaham (1961)
Seghill
Sherwood
Shotton (1961)
South Leicester
South Moor (Charley Pit)
Stephenson
Thorne
Throckley (Stephenson) (1963)
Upton
Watnall
Welbeck
Wharncliffe Woodmoor
Whittlesea Central Brickworks (NCB Ancillaries (Whittlesea) Limited) (1966)
Whitwick
Wombwell
Wylam


Scotland

Annbank
Auchenlea Quarries and Brickworks
Auchlochan
Balgonie
Bank
Barbauchlaw
Blairadam
Blantyreferme
Brucefield
Buccleuch Terra Cotta Works
Brucefield
Callander Brick and Fireclay Works (1968)
Dunaskin
Fauldhead
Gartshore
Gateside
Littlemill
Lochgelly
Meta
Newbattle
Newton
Niddrie
Northfield (1954) (Shotts)
Prestongrange Brick, Tile and Fireclay Works
Roslin
Skares (1954)
Wallyford
Whitehill (1954)


Wales

Coedely
Onllwyn
Tredegar

Well, as I said in an earlier post "Sharlston" and "Newland" both had brickworks; in addition Monckton nr Barnsley had their own and are labelled variously, "Monckton", "NMC" (new Monckton Collieries), "MMC" which I suspect is a bit of dyslexia or they lost the N but there are quite a lot of bricks in the coke works demolition pile stamped MMC. Snydale Colliery part of the Briggs' group had a brickworks the bricks labelled "SYNYDALE" carried on a bit after the colliery as the local brickworks 'magnate' took on production for a while.

Well, as I said in an earlier post "Sharlston" and "Newland" both had brickworks; in addition Monckton nr Barnsley had their own and are labelled variously, "Monckton", "NMC" (new Monckton Collieries), "MMC" which I suspect is a bit of dyslexia or they lost the N but there are quite a lot of bricks in the coke works demolition pile stamped MMC. Snydale Colliery part of the Briggs' group had a brickworks the bricks labelled "SYNYDALE" carried on a bit after the colliery as the local brickworks 'magnate' took on production for a while.

As far as I have been able to ascertain the collieries that you list did not retain ownership of the associated brickworks at nationalisation. These works seem to have remained in private ownership and were not ever managed by the NCB.

You're most probably correct, I don't know what the ownership positions were at nationalisation and they were in private hands by the 1970s. It must have been a bit of a duff decision by the coal board 'cos much stuff was built at the relevant collieries in the 1960/70s using the bricks from their former brickworks; a guaranteed market for the new owners.

Well, as I said in an earlier post "Sharlston" and "Newland" both had brickworks; in addition Monckton nr Barnsley had their own and are labelled variously, "Monckton", "NMC" (new Monckton Collieries), "MMC" which I suspect is a bit of dyslexia or they lost the N but there are quite a lot of bricks in the coke works demolition pile stamped MMC. Snydale Colliery part of the Briggs' group had a brickworks the bricks labelled "SYNYDALE" carried on a bit after the colliery as the local brickworks 'magnate' took on production for a while.

The MMC Of Monckton will have stood for Monckton Main Colliery (1875-1901), then the company changed its name to New Monckton Collieries hence the NMC on the bricks.

Monckton Main, of course, why didn't I realise that, thanks Stephen. Meanwhile I've discovered some of the Normanton bricks did actually say "St Johns". I've I photo of the said brickworks in a terribly derelict state but I can't post it because the graffiti is too foul and very big.