When did our brick works close?

I am on another of my quests and this time it is to gather up memories of the Chorlton Brick Works.*

It was here from the beginning of the last century and was supposed to have just a short life.

The Egerton’s who owned most of the land in the township had been keen to prevent any industrial development harming the prospects of selling off their estate for surburban housing.  After all most of the new people who settled here from the 1880s were attracted by the fact that we were just 10 minutes by train from the city centre but on the edge of the countryside and were not over keen to have huge brick works blotting the landscape.

But given that the Egerton’s would have got a good deal from the Chorlton Land & Building Company Ltd I suspect that they were happy to see the blot on the landscape for a short time.  The question is just how long did that blot exist for?

It was certainly still there in 1922 when the owner Joseph Jackson went into partnership with another brick manufacturer but may not have survived into the 1930s.

There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that it had closed before the last world war but Philip Lloyd remembers “seeing the line of aerial buckets moving across, when I was at the library end of Longford Road”  and its opening may have been connected with the war.

German air raids damaged many properties and while in most cases the bricks could be salvaged this was not the case with many of the roof tiles, so it seems logical that  the works reopened.

All of which has set me off on that new quest to find out more about the brick works in the 1940s and hence the appeal to anyone who remembers like Philip seeing the buckets swaying across the sky line.

Those memories must be out there because as the photograph above shows, the chimney of the works was still standing in 1958.  And my old chum David has already posted his wonderful stories of playing amongst the disused bricks as a lad.

And no sooner had I posted the story than Peter Thompson added that
"Just had a coversation with my friend Bill Goodehall (84) who was born on Nicolas Road. He remembers the brickworks as being fully intact on Coronation day 1953. Although he can't remember if it was still operational."

*http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Chorlton%20Brick%20Works

Pictures; detail from the 1907 OS map, Brick works, corner of Longford Road and Manchester Road, A H Downes, 1958, m18034 Courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council.