Lewisham brickworks

The History of Sydenham from Cippenham to present day. Links to photos especially welcome!
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marymck
Posts: 1579
Joined: 9 Feb 2008 16:30
Location: Upper Kirkdale

Lewisham brickworks

Post by marymck »

Please can anyone give me any information about the Lewisham brickworks?

I believe there was a brickworks at Loampit Vale. Was this the only brickworks? Would they have been operating in 1870 & if so is it likely that the houses in Mount Ash Road were made with Lewisham bricks? What did the bricks look like? Were they yellowish, as Sherlock Holmes seems to suggest? If so that would suggest Mount Ash Road wasn't constructed of Lewisham bricks.

Thanks
Howard Staunton
Posts: 88
Joined: 15 Sep 2007 18:30
Location: Fairlawn Park

Post by Howard Staunton »

Marymck,

There was a brickworks in the area that is now occupied by allotments to the south of Fairlawn Park. I was told by an elderly neighbour that the houses on Fairlawn Park, built over a period of years in the 1890s, were built of bricks from this brickworks. The Stanford Map of 1862 shows a field in this area called 'Kent House Brickfield', so presumably bricks were being produced in this area in 1870. According to another map, by 1894, this appears to have become the 'Beckenham & Penge Brick Works'.

Howard
will greenwood
Posts: 352
Joined: 14 Jan 2008 23:45
Location: moorlinch

Post by will greenwood »

There was a small brick works on Blythe Hilll too, although it may have been a mobile concern. A lot of brick firing detritus was found along the railway cutting around Garthorne rd, which could mean bricks were being made there when the railway cutting was dug.
Image
"The headquarters of Job Heath's brickmaking business was at his home in Holdenby Road, but the bricks were made on the spot where the brick earth was dug, in this case Blythe Hill Fields. Much of the earth in the Brockley area was suitable for brick and tile making, and was nearly all excavated before the ground was built."
Steve Grindlay
Posts: 606
Joined: 4 Oct 2004 05:07
Location: Upper Sydenham

Post by Steve Grindlay »

As well as those mentioned there were several other brickworks in the area.

The earliest was near of what is now Honor Oak Road, operating from the 1730s to 1770s.

One of the earliest Victorian brickworks was off Westwood Hill, near the junction with Crystal Palace Park Road. It was making brick to build the Lawrie Park estate and elswhere from about 1855 until the late 1870s.

Another was the Sydenham and Forest Hill Brickworks in Perry Rise, near Allenby Road, brickmaking for houses in Garlies and Allenby Roads (and further afield) between about 1875-1884.

Then there is the Mid-Kent Brickworks, Kangley Bridge Road, to which I can find only one reference, in 1882.

The Beckenham and Penge Brickworks, already mentioned by Howard, operated near the junction of Kent House Lane and Kent House Road from about 1882-1915.

Mary, I suspect the yellowish bricks you mention are what are known as "Kentish stocks".
Sandel
Posts: 1
Joined: 11 Jun 2009 18:49
Location: Crowborough

Post by Sandel »

My Gt Gt grandad moved from being a farm labour in Pulborough Sussex in 1834, to Sydenham to become a brickfields labour.
They lived in Dawsons cottages, by 1911 they had moved to Larkbere Rd.
Can any body help with any information on the brickworks or Dawson cottages.
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