Bradley & Craven Ltd was a manufacturing company specializing in brickmaking machinery in Wakefield England.
A brickworks, also known as a brick factory, is a factory for the manufacturing of bricks, from clay or shale. Usually a brickworks is located on a clay bedrock, often with a quarry for clay on site.
Wakefield is a city in West Yorkshire, England, on the River Calder and the eastern edge of the Pennines, which had a population of 99,251 at the 2011 census.
The company was founded in 1843 by two young engineers, William Craven and Richard Bradley to manufacture what was then revolutionary machinery for automating clay brick production. Their 1853 patented ‘Stiff-Plastic Brickmaking Machine’, in combination with the Hoffman continuous kiln was responsible for changes in the industry which eventually saw it shift from a hand craft to a mechanized production line. [1] Their machines were manufactured at the Westgate Common Foundry in Wakefield and were sold throughout the United Kingdom as well as many oversees markets such as Australia, South Africa and Germany. [2]
The company also made steam engines, colliery winding gear and exhibited in the 1862 London International Exhibition. [3]
In 1972 Bradley & Craven, amalgamated with a rival Leeds company, Thomas C. Fawcett, forming Craven Fawcett Limited. [4] However the name continued in use with a new private limited company of the same name incorporated on 1 October 1998 and dissolved on 30 July 2002. [5]
Bellingdon the name deriving from the Anglo Saxon Bellingdenu or Bella's Valley, and is recorded as Belenden in the 15th century, is a village in the civil parish of Chartridge, in Buckinghamshire, England. It is arranged along a ridge, typical of the Chiltern Hills to the north of Chesham.
William Foster & Co Ltd was an agricultural machinery company based in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England and usually just called "Fosters of Lincoln." The company can be traced back to 1846, when William Foster purchased a flour mill in Lincoln. William Foster then proceeded to start small scale manufacturing of mill machinery and threshing machinery. The mill was converted to an iron foundry by 1856, thus becoming the original Wellington Foundry. During the First World War they built some of the first tanks for the British Army.
Ridgmont is a small village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England. It is located beside junction 13 of the M1 motorway, and close to Milton Keynes and Woburn Abbey. The 2001 census states the total population to be 418, reducing to 411 at the 2011 Census.
Marston Vale is an area of Bedfordshire. It lies to the south west of Bedford and Kempston, near Junction 13 of the M1 motorway. Historically it was one of the main brickmaking districts in England, home of the London Brick Company, now a division of Hanson plc. The brickmaking activity left scars across the landscape of the Marston Vale as large tracts of land were dug for clay. Most of the claypits are now exhausted, and most of the brickmaking chimneys have been demolished. The legacy of the abandoned brickworks also adds to the impression that the Marston Vale has been despoiled by decades of industrial activity and it is now searching for a new identity. In more recent years the local authorities have taken the opportunity to reuse the clay pits for landfills at Stewartby and Brogborough, both of which are recently capped and closed down.
Platt Brothers, also known as Platt Bros & Co Ltd, was a British company based at Werneth in Oldham, North West England. The company manufactured textile machinery and were iron founders and colliery proprietors. By the end of the 19th century, the company had become the largest textile machinery manufacturer in the world, employing more than 12,000 workers.
The Hoffmann kiln is a series of batch process kilns. Hoffmann kilns are the most common kiln used in production of bricks and some other ceramic products. Patented by German Friedrich Hoffmann for brickmaking in 1858, it was later used for lime-burning, and was known as the Hoffmann continuous kiln.
Brickworks Limited is an Australian owned and based group of companies engaged in the design, development, manufacturing, marketing, distribution, and sales of a variety of building materials. In 2014, major brick competitors CSR and Boral merged to create Boral CSR Bricks Pty Ltd.
Welland is an inner suburb of Adelaide in the City of Charles Sturt local government area. It is around 5 km west northwest of the city centre. It was named for Welland, Worcestershire in 1907.
J. Hallett and Son, founded in 1904, was for most of the 20th century South Australia's most important brickmaking firm.
A brickfield is a common location name in southeast England. Its name derives from a field where the topsoil was removed and the clay beneath was stripped, and mixed with chalk and ash to create bricks. The field now could then be used for horticulture, in Kent it was often planted with fruit trees. Brickfields were mainly created from 1770 to 1881, when a new shaly clay was discovered at Fletton. This period coincided with the housing and railway boom in London and cheap river transport in Thames sailing barges. Brickfields existed elsewhere, but often the clay layer was deeper or there was no chalk in the proximity.
Midhurst Brickworks is a former brickworks situated to the south-west of Midhurst, West Sussex in England. The works were sited close to the Midhurst Common railway station on the Midhurst to Petersfield (L.S.W.R.) railway line. The works were established in 1913, on land owned by the Cowdray Estate, and closed in 1985. From 1938, the company traded as Midhurst Whites after their main product, white bricks made of sand and lime, which was obtained from the Cocking Lime Works, 5 km (3 mi) south.
Newmarket Brickworks Chimney is a heritage-listed brickworks at 117 Mina Parade, Alderley, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1912. It is also known as Hoffman Stack. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 24 March 2000.
Pindi Pindi Brickworks is a heritage-listed former brickworks off the Bruce Highway, Pindi Pindi, Mackay Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1933. It is also known as Evans Firebricks Ltd and Pindi Pindi Firebricks Company. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 27 October 2000.
Porth Wen Brickworks is a now disused Victorian brickworks which produced fire bricks, made from quartzite (silica) used to line steel-making furnaces. The substantial remains include a number of buildings and the remains of some of the machinery, but has some damage from sea erosion. The site is a scheduled monument.
Bursledon Brickworks Industrial Museum, often shortened to Bursledon Brickworks is a volunteer-run brickworks museum based in the village of Swanwick, Hampshire, England. It is thought to be the last Victorian steam-driven brickworks left in the UK.
The Lithgow Valley Colliery and Pottery Site is a heritage-listed former pottery and colliery and now pottery and visitor attraction at Bent Street, Lithgow, City of Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. It was built from 1876 to 1945. It is also known as Lithgow Pottery and Brickworks. The property is privately owned. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
The Brunswick Brick Tile & Pottery Company was established in 1870 on a site in Albert Street Brunswick, as one of the first modern mechanical brickworks in Australia. It was also known as the Hoffman Patent Brick & Tile Company, Hoffman Brickworks, or just ' Hoffman's' for most of its 100 plus years of operation.
A brickyard, or brickfield, is a place or yard where the earthen building material called bricks are made, fired, and stored, or sometimes sold or otherwise distributed from. Brick makers work in a brick yard. A brick yard may be constructed near natural sources of clay or on or near a construction site if necessity or design requires the bricks to be made locally.
Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term masonry can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are brick, building stone such as marble, granite, travertine, and limestone, cast stone, concrete block, glass block, and adobe. Masonry is generally a highly durable form of construction. However, the materials used, the quality of the mortar and workmanship, and the pattern in which the units are assembled can substantially affect the durability of the overall masonry construction. A person who constructs masonry is called a mason or bricklayer. These are both classified as construction trades.