Lambs Brickfields, Rayleigh
Some history and memories
By Sid Barker
Lambs Brickfield at Rayleigh was situated to the south side of Hambro Hill, where Upper and Lower Lambricks are now to be found (hence the names of these roads). Originally it was known as The Rayleigh Brick and Tile Works. I do not know when Brick production started there. It was probably late in the 19th Century or early in the 20th. The earliest reference so far found to it is a notice dated 30th March 1907 in the London Standard announcing a liquidators auction sale of the entire 22 acres of land, buildings and machinery. Later there is a report of a geological survey carried out in 1925 by Essex Field Club and it would appear that it was still called the Rayleigh Brick and Tile Works, so presumably whoever bought the business at the auction continued trading under the original name. I do not know when Lambs took over the works.
The site covered the 22 acres from the public footpath on the brow of the hill just above the houses in Upper Lambricks down to the railway bridge at the bottom of the hill. It then followed the route of the railway line. The southern boundary was the ditch at the bottom of what is now the gardens of the bungalows in Cotswold Avenue.
The main entrance to the works was by means of an unmade road where Lower Lambricks is now. There was a small black weatherboard cottage at the junction with Hambro Hill, although whether this was part of the brickfield I do not know. At one time, so I was told, there were also two or three old cottages on the side of the road adjacent to the railway bridge, which appear to be shown on a 1939 map, and according to the 1907 auction notice there were 5 newly erected workmens cottages, so maybe they were the ones near the bridge. Some of the bricks remaining from the demolition could be found there in the 1950s and there were also some domestic flowers still growing there. I was also told that the land behind was at one time used as a rubbish tip by Rayleigh Urban District Council. It is possible that there were one or two pits there that had turned into ponds as I seem to recall some willow growing.
The unmade road carried on straight until it came to the first of the works buildings when it curved round sharply to the left and then again sharp right and into the main yard. At this second bend was a large well with a brick wall around it. Rumor had it that during WW2 the works had been a depot for sorting out ammunition and other military items and the well was supposed to be the full of old rifles. There certainly was some truth in the ammunition depot rumor as we often found old hand grenades, mortar bombs etc (all dud!) in the ditches and undergrowth.
These buildings were still extant until recently when they were demolished and can still be seen on some older versions of Google Earth. The main clay pit, partially filled with water was at the back of the yard and was dug out of a very steep slope, having very steep cliff_like sides which are still in evidence today. Sand martins used to nest in holes in the clay. There was a pump house in the water and a narrow gauge railway line ran from the pit up to and through an opening high up in a building which presumably housed a pug mixing machine. The trucks were the small side-tipping type often seen in quarries, and must have been hauled up and down by means of a cable attached to some type of powered winch.
I recall that one day we found one of these wagons on its side and tried to put it back on the rails but ended up dropping it on a friend's younger brother's foot!
There were a series of other brick buildings as well, some more modern in design than others. These were probably the drying sheds, machine and Engine houses and the offices referred to in the auction particulars. For some time after the works closed they were used by Grant Bros. Removals of Rayleigh as storage warehouses and later by a firm of Antique shippers, although the rest of the site had been built on.
To the north of the pit was what we called The Ravine, a long deep ravine-like excavation in which we spent many happy hours playing soldiers, our guns being either stout sticks or the metal legs off old fashioned bedsteads.
One day in the early 50s a geologist was carrying out a survey of the pit sides and we spent all morning spying on him thinking he did not know we were there, but it turned out on speaking to him later that he knew he was being watched from the start.
The largest building was the kiln block, surmounted by a very high brick chimney which was a landmark for miles around. According to the 1907 auction particulars it was a 16 chamber kiln block, lined with fire bricks, and capable of holding 400,000 bricks. There was also a railway siding coming off the main Southend line alongside the kilns, so that railway wagons could be loaded with bricks. The type of brick made there that I remember was a soft stock which broke quite easily. When they were loaded they were stacked with straw in between them. According to the 1907 auction particulars bricks manufactured in those days were the finest coloured red moulded bricks, wire cuts, which were probably the stocks and superior quality engineering bricks.
The other entrance was by way of an unmanned level crossing at the top of Preston Gardens. This had both a vehicle and a pedestrian gate and as I recall an electric bell used to ring warning of an approaching train. Preston Gardens was an unmade road with only Preston House in it. The surface was made of red brick dust and when it rained heavily a lot of this was washed down into Down Hall Road, leaving a thick deposit in the middle of the road.
Immediately across the crossing was a large brick-built washroom/toilet block, and in the early 50s a detached bungalow was also built there which I believe was home for a watchman and his wife and family.
In the 1950s bricks were not produced on a full time basis, which is surprising considering the building boom that was developing after the war. It is possible that the deposits of the type of clay needed were running out. Every so often when bricks were being produced a workforce would arrive and smoke could be seen coming out of the chimney. Usually the only employee on the site was the foreman, a very friendly man called Jack. There was also a manager who paid regular visits. He had a lovely open top car with large running boards and used to park it at the top of Preston Gardens. We kids used to delight in pressing the hooter and sometimes he would get so annoyed he would move his car across the level crossing into the factory yard out of our reach. I understood Lambs had another brickworks at Wickford so whether the labour force was transferred from there as needed or recruited locally on a temporary basis I do not know.
Lambs also had some lorries with dark green painted cabs with a picture of a lambs head on the cab doors. I recall their phone number was Rayleigh 1.
We kids were always tolerated and allowed to roam freely without being chased away, although we usually steered clear of the actual works buildings and yards, and kept out of the way when production was in progress. We never engaged in mindless vandalism or stealing so were probably not seen as being any trouble, and of course Health and Safety was a thing of the future in those days.
Much of the 22 acre site was overgrown and there was quite a collection of flora and fauna. There were many fox earths and it was not unusual when walking past a clump of bushes for a fox to come running out. There were also adders and grass snakes. A friend's father who was an expert amateur rose grower use to obtain the root stock for his standard roses from the wild roses that abounded across the site. Usually hot weather resulted in the grass and undergrowth catching fire, which used to delight us and always led to the arrival of the Rayleigh Fire Brigade in their ex WD red painted Matador towing a trailer pump. They always managed to beat the fire out, although there was nothing it could really damage.
Our favourite spot was what we called “The Old Black Shed” This was an odd shaped open ended corrugated iron building painted black which stood alone in the south east corner of the site. There was a remnant of narrow gauge railway track outside (Buffers?) but it was the inside that held the main attraction to us, where there was a large iron construction, which vaguely resembled the boiler of a steam engine, but what intrigued us was the fact that it rested on stacks of long metal boxes which had obviously contained either ammunition or some type of light bomb or rocket. We spent many an hour with borrowed tools trying to prise these boxes open, convinced that their contents were still in situ, and were very disappointed to find that in the end they were empty!
I have been told that on the slope leading down to the Black Shed were examples of rare orchids, although cannot remember them and as a youngster would not even have known what an orchid was. Probably today it would have been deemed a site of special scientific importance and building would not have been allowed.
In 1938 Lambs objected to plans by the then Rayleigh Urban District Council to purchase part of the land for a cemetery, stating they had just invested £500 in new machinery. They would not object to RUDC buying all their land, but selling part would make the brickworks unviable.
Then in 1939 RUDC were planning to build houses there and Lambs again objected, but war intervened and nothing further happened.
When production eventually ceased the site was sold to Wiggins the builders who built the present day roads and houses. The tall chimney was blown up and the kilns demolished in about 1956. Because of the close proximity of the railway line the demolition of the chimney was carried out at 2am in the morning after the last train had gone through, in case it fell the wrong way, which it did not. Some of us stayed up to watch. The chimney was silhouetted against the night sky so we had a good view of it falling. As I recall the explosion was a little disappointing as we were expecting a huge bang, but it was more like a sharp crack of a rifle. I have never figured out why most of the old factory buildings were left standing in what is the middle of a large housing development.
I’d also like to record my thanks to my very old friend Professor Bernard de Neumann who not only jogged my memory about one or two things I had forgotten from 60 odd years ago, but also found the auction notice in the newspaper archive.