 | |
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Brickmaking |
| Founded | 1900 |
| Founder | John Cathles Hill |
| Headquarters | Stewartby, Bedfordshire, England |
| Products | Bricks and paviors |
Number of employees | 200 |
| Parent | Forterra plc |
| Website | www |
The London Brick Company, owned by Forterra plc, is a leading British manufacturer of bricks.
The London Brick Company owes its origins to John Cathles Hill, a developer-architect who built houses in London and Peterborough. In 1889, Hill bought the small T.W. Hardy & Sons brickyard at Fletton in Peterborough, and the business was incorporated as the London Brick Company in 1900. [1] "Fletton" is the generic name given to bricks made from lower Oxford clay which have a low fuel cost due to the carbonaceous content of the clay. [2] Hill ran into financial difficulties and, in 1912, a receiver was appointed to run London Brick. Hill died in 1915, but after the receiver was discharged in 1919, Hill's son continued to run the company. [1]
The capital intensive Fletton brick industry suffered from substantial variations in demand. After the First World War, amalgamations were proposed. In 1923, London Brick merged with Malcolm Stewart's B.J. Forder, who, along with London Brick, was one of the four main groupings in the Fletton brick industry.
The new company, for a while called L.B.C. & Forders, went on to acquire other brick firms in the end of the 1920s, giving it a dominant position in the Fletton brick industry. By 1931, the company was making a billion bricks a year. In 1935, output exceeded 1.5 billion bricks, or 60 per cent of the Fletton brick industry output, and peak pre war output reached 1.75 billion bricks. [1]
During the post war housing boom, Fletton brick sales increased, reaching a peak in 1967. Brick sales then began to decline, and the company diversified. London Brick Landfill was formed, and it began the tipping of household and industrial refuse into the old clay pits in the Marston Vale area. London Brick Landfill was merged into Shanks Group in 1988. [3]
Between 1968 and 1971, The London Brick Company also bought its three remaining Fletton brick competitors, including the Marston Valley Brick Company, giving it a total monopoly in the Fletton brick market. In 1973, its brick sales totalled 2.88 billion, or 43 per cent of the total brick market. [2]
In 1984, the company was acquired by Hanson plc. In February 2008, Hanson closed brickmaking operations at Stewartby in Marston Vale owing to problems with meeting sulphur emission regulations in the United Kingdom, even though it met the EU regulations. Production of Fletton brick is now concentrated at Peterborough, while the Marston Vale site is being redeveloped for housing. [3]
As of 2010, the brick market stood at 1.5 billion, with Fletton brick accounting for less than 10 per cent. [4]
Many Italian families from the southern regions of Apulia and Campania came to Bedford in the 1950s to work in the Stewartby brickworks in Marston Vale, and Peterborough to work in the Fletton brickworks. [5] As well as Bedford and Peterborough, many Italian families also settled in Bletchley to work in its Newton Longville factory. Although not as many Italians settled in Bletchley as they did in Bedford or Peterborough, there is still a substantial community there.
In addition to the Italian communities, workers from the Punjab region of India arrived in the 1950s and 1960s to work at the Stewartby brickworks, with 106 Pakistanis, 154 Indians and 46 West Indians working at the site by 1967. [6] The majority of the Indians were from the Nawanshahr district of Punjab, and settled with their families in Bedford. A large number of Bangladeshi workers were continually recruited at the Newton Longville and Jubilee works during the 1960s to 1980s. They lived as a close-knit community, predominantly in Duncombe Street, Bletchley.
The company estimates that 5 million houses in the United Kingdom are built using Fletton brick. [7]
Bedfordshire is a ceremonial and historic county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckinghamshire to the west. The largest settlement is Luton which had a population of 225,262 in 2021.
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of its urban area, including Kempston and Biddenham, was 106,940. Bedford is also the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford, a unitary authority that includes a significant rural area.
Newton Longville is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, within the Buckinghamshire Council unitary authority area. The village is about 2 miles (3 km) south-west of Bletchley in Milton Keynes.
The Oxford Clay is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specifically, the Callovian and Oxfordian ages, and comprises two main facies. The lower facies comprises the Peterborough Member, a fossiliferous organic-rich mudstone. This facies and its rocks are commonly known as lower Oxford Clay. The upper facies comprises the middle Oxford Clay, the Stewartby Member, and the upper Oxford Clay, the Weymouth Member. The upper facies is a fossil poor assemblage of calcareous mudstones.
Bedford St Johns is one of two railway stations in Bedford in Bedfordshire, England, on the Marston Vale Line linking Bletchley and Bedford. It is unstaffed and is operated by London Northwestern Railway.
Lidlington is a small village and civil parish in Central Bedfordshire, England surrounded by farmland, in the Marston Vale. The hamlets of Boughton End and Thrupp End are also part of the parish.
Arlesey is a town and civil parish in the Central Bedfordshire district of Bedfordshire, England. It is near the border with Hertfordshire, about three miles north-west of Letchworth Garden City, four miles north of Hitchin and six miles south of Biggleswade. Arlesey railway station provides services to London, Stevenage and Peterborough. The Domesday Book mentions Arlesey. The town's name means the 'island of a man named Aelfric'.
Stewartby is a model village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, originally built for the workers of the London Brick Company. The village was designed and built to the plans of the company's architect Mr F W Walker, laid out on 'Garden City' principle, a later and more modern development than such better-known Victorian model villages as Saltaire. Started in 1926, Stewartby is also a later model than Woodlands which was first planned in 1905. The later retirement bungalow development of the 1950s and 1960s with the pavilion community centre in their midst was designed by the neo-Georgian architect Professor Sir Albert Richardson. Today, Stewartby parish also includes Kempston Hardwick.
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.
Fletton is an area of the city of Peterborough, in the Peterborough district, in the ceremonial county of Cambridgeshire, England, south of the River Nene.
The South Midlands League was a football league covering Bedfordshire and some adjoining counties in England. It was founded in 1922 as the Bedfordshire County League and merged with the Spartan League in 1997 to form the Spartan South Midlands League.
Millbrook railway station serves the villages of Millbrook and Marston Moretaine in Bedfordshire, England. It is on the Marston Vale Line, between Stewartby and Lidlington. Millbrook is also the principal stop for the Marston Vale Millennium Country Park.
Stewartby railway station is a station on the London Northwestern Railway, which serves the Bedfordshire village of Stewartby in England. It is the nearest station to the Marston Vale Millennium Country Park.
Kempston Hardwick railway station serves the village of Kempston Hardwick in Bedfordshire, England. It should not be confused with the nearby town of Kempston. The station has two platforms next to a half-barrier level crossing.
The Blue Lagoon Local Nature Reserve is a Local Nature Reserve in Bletchley, Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. The Blue Lagoon is the only Local Nature Reserve in the City of Milton Keynes. The diverse habitat, including shallow and deep water, grassland, scrubland and woodland, hosts an abundance of fauna and flora. The Blue Lagoon is also extensively used as a recreational facility.
Sir Percy Malcolm Stewart, 1st Baronet, was an English industrialist and philanthropist. He incorporated The London Brick Company in the 1920s which was at the time reputed to be the largest brick making company in the United Kingdom.
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.
Newton Leys is a district that covers the southern tip of Bletchley and straddles the boundary between the City of Milton Keynes and the rest of Buckinghamshire. The larger fraction of Newton Leys lies within Milton Keynes and forms a part of Bletchley and Fenny Stratford civil parish. It is separated from central Bletchley, Water Eaton and the Lakes Estate by the West Coast Main Line. The remaining fraction of Newton Leys lies within the (former) Aylesbury Vale district and forms a part of the Stoke Hammond civil parish, although the village of Stoke Hammond is situated on the other side of the A4146
East West Rail is a strategic aim to establish a new main line railway between East Anglia and South Wales. The immediate plan is to build a line linking Oxford and Cambridge via Bicester, Milton Keynes and Bedford, largely using the trackbed of the former Varsity Line. Thus it provides a route between any or all of the Great Western, Chiltern, West Coast, Midland, East Coast, West Anglia, Great Eastern and the Cotswold main lines, avoiding London. The new line will provide a route for potential new services between Southampton Central or Swansea and Ipswich or Norwich via Reading, Didcot and Ely, using existing onward lines. The government approved the western section in November 2011, with completion of this section expected by 2025.
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As of 1 July 1935
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