Throckley Brick and Tile Works

Throckley Brick and Tile Works. Marked and Throckley Firebrick and Clay Retort Works on the 2nd edition OS mapping {1}. Mr W Stephenson had established a brick and tileworks near the Maria coal pit by 1849, making firebricks, common bricks, quarls, field drainage tiles and soles. Early handmade firebricks were marked “W.S.& Sons, Throckley”, or “Stephenson, Newcastle”. In the 1920s a new grinding plant was installed and two new brick machine presses. The brickyard eventually had 34 Newcastle-type kilns. In 1951, these kilns were replaced by a 20-chamber Staffordshire transverse-arch kiln, and produced six million bricks per year. A tunnel kiln was built in 1965 and the works modernised by the Northern Brick Company. The Throckley works pioneered the manufacture of through-coloured grey facing bricks from which the Mitford range of bricks developed. The Throckley yard is the only survivor of a group of 26 brickworks that were owned by the National Coal Board in 1947. In 1973, Gibbons (Dudley) Ltd took over the remaining nine brickworks and by 1977 only Throckley and Cramlington were still working.
Dates: 1857 – 1986 (Stephenson’s Yard, Throckley)
Manufacturer from 1857-1947 was W Stephenson and Sons.
(Source: Davison, P J, 1986. Brickworks of the North East, 86, 87 site 2, 97.) William Stephenson's Throckley Brickworks were said to be the site of the last surviving Dandy Cart (a four-wheeled truck which was horse-powered on the flat or up inclines, but the horses 'rode' on the truck downhill). It was used at Throckley until 1907. The horses pulled the wagons loaded with firebricks and furnace lumps, from the brickworks to the level crossing at Throckley, then rode the Dandy Wagon downhill to Spencer's Steelworks at Newburn, then pulled the wagons to Lemington Staiths. Once emptied, the wagons were pulled back to the brickworks by the horses.