T H E   D E R E L I C T   M I S C E L L A N Y

As I approached the derelict brickworks the rain set in; scattered at first and then by degrees becoming torrential, cascading from broken drainpipes and forming deep puddles in the yard. Wind tore at loose sheeting and slammed it loudly and repeatedly against the walls. I entered the works via clay prep, taking the same route as the raw clay. The first thing that struck me about the works was its size: the main shed is 500' long, 200' wide and three stories high. The second was how much damage had been sustained in just five years of disuse: windows had been smashed, papers lay strewn everywhere and large holes in the roof let water pour through, flooding the factory floors below. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth overlain with the biting stench of pigeon dung.

Factory buildings Mixing and additive controls Negretti & Zambra graphing thermometer for measuring dryer temperature Control room and transfer car run, kiln on the left These boots You'll need them... [click images below to expand & enlarge]

The Clock House Brick Company L^td was founded c.1933 to exploit a rich deposit of high-quality Weald Clay to the south of the Surrey village of Capel. The outbreak of war in 1939 was bad news for brickmaking, as housebuilding effectively ceased and the workforce was swallowed up by conscription. Although there was some demand for bricks to be used in military engineering projects, there was little use for the high-grade ceramic blocks made at Clock House. By 1941, the Company was in liquidation and sold the majority of its share capital to the London Brick Company (LBC) to avoid closing the works. In 1945, the Company was wound up for good and the works were acquired by the LBC. Under LBC, production was substantially increased to meet demand from the recovering housing market and in the 1960s the factory was rebuilt to accommodate more efficient production methods.

London Brick was acquired by Hanson PLC in 1984 and the works was refitted shortly afterwards to produce multi stock bricks under the Butterley and Capel brand names. In 1998, Clockhouse Bricks were used by three major exhibitors in that year's Ideal Home Show and by 2000, Clock House was Hanson’s main soft mud production site, making around 42 million bricks per year.

Just eight years later, the global financial crisis hit the building materials industry, hard: a sudden slump in housing prices meant that house-building ground almost to a halt and the demand for bricks plummeted. In March 2009, Hanson announced a 'phased closure programme' which began immediately, leading to the loss of 61 jobs. Hanson have since indicated that there is no intention to re-activate the brickworks or extract clay from the adjacent pits. Since closure, Clock House Brickworks has been in limbo, slowly being stripped of anything valuable while a lengthy audit determines the planning conditions surrounding re-use of the site. Plans for an incinerator ('energy from waste facility') on the site, bitterly opposed by local residents, were thrown out by a High Court Judgment in 2009 and the future of the site is now uncertain.