Bursledon Brickworks

Overview

The last Victorian steam-powered brickworks left in Britain, and the claypits that fed it. It made over twenty million bricks a year at its peak, closed in 1974 when the good clay ran out and the M27 cut the site in half, and is now a museum.

History

The works were founded in 1897 by Robert and Edward Ashby, partners in the Southampton builders' merchants Hooper & Ashby, and became the Bursledon Brick Company in 1903. Expansion in the early 1900s gave the site two complexes and five chimneys. By 1935 it was producing more than twenty million bricks a year. The company merged into what became Redland Holdings in 1959, and the works closed in 1974, when the better clay had been worked out and the M27 was driven through the site.

Geology

The clay is London Clay of the Hampshire Basin, laid down where river silt met sand from the sea: brown and oxidised for the first few metres, blue beneath. It fires to the red brick the district is known for, which is why brickmaking concentrated here rather than anywhere else in the county.

Geological setting: Sedimentary Beds and Seams (well documented example)

Workings

Clay was dug from open pits beside the works, at first entirely by hand — gangs of men on spades, paid between ten shillings and thirty a week depending on the weather — and moved in narrow-gauge wagons hauled up an inclined plane to the top of the brick machine. From the mid-1930s mechanical diggers took over, with aerial ropeways and conveyors bringing clay in, and as the local pits were exhausted the workings spread to the larger clay field at Swanwick. Inside, a Bennett & Sayer stiff-clay machine from Derby was claimed to be capable of 40,000 bricks a day, driven by a John Wood & Sons steam engine from Wigan, and the bricks were fired in a Staffordshire-type continuous kiln of twelve chambers holding up to 26,000 each.

Closure

Production ended in 1974: the superior clay had been worked out, and the M27 motorway divided what was left of the site.

What remains

The southern section is Grade II* listed and survives as the Brickworks Museum, taken on by the Hampshire Buildings Preservation Trust for a nominal £1 and reopened to the public in 2014 after a £666,300 Heritage Lottery Fund grant. Its kiln, chimney, drying sheds, boiler and engine house all stand, and the steam engine still runs.

Kiln, chimney, drying sheds, boiler house and engine house, all Grade II* listed, with the original steam engine and brick-making machinery in place.

Abandoned workings can be dangerous — unstable ground, uncapped shafts, flooding and bad air are common even where a site looks safe from the surface. This entry describes history and general location only; it is not an access guide.

Recorded claims

Individual factual claims, each attached to the source(s) that support it below. Where sources disagree, both are kept.

• The brickworks were founded in 1897 by Robert and Edward Ashby of the builders’ merchants Hooper & Ashby, the company being renamed the Bursledon Brick Co. Ltd in 1903. (medium) ¹
• A local history instead dates the founding to 1896 and credits it to Edward Hooper’s partnership with the Ashby family. (medium) ²
• Clay was dug by hand by gangs earning from ten to thirty shillings a week and moved in narrow-gauge wagons hauled up an inclined plane to the brick machine; mechanical diggers, ropeways and conveyors took over from the mid-1930s. (high) ^1,2
• A Bennett & Sayer stiff-clay machine was claimed capable of 40,000 bricks a day, and by 1935 the site produced more than twenty million bricks a year, fired in a twelve-chamber continuous kiln. (high) ¹
• Production ceased in 1974, the better clay having been worked out, and the M27 motorway divided the site. (high) ^1,2

Photographs & further reading

This page doesn't try to reproduce everything — these are the best original sources found for this mine.

Images

Sources

1. (secondary) Bursledon Brickworks Museum — Wikipedia
2. (secondary) Bursledon Brickworks — Hampshire History

Record created: 25 August 2026 · Last researched: 25 August 2026