INDUSTRIES 



the remains of some curious excavations in 

 the earth which go by the name of ' Cole's 

 Pits.' Many explanations of these have been 

 suggested, but the most probable appears to 

 be that they are the relics of old workings in 

 the underlying ironstone. 1 It is said that 

 mill-stones were formerly made here of this 

 substance. 



Building stone of Portland age, similar to 

 that which occurs in the great quarries of 

 Swindon a few miles to the west, was formerly 

 worked at Bourton, 2 a village which is built 

 on a small outlier of that formation. 



Berkshire is well provided with the raw 

 material for the manufacture of bricks, tiles 

 and pottery, clay of various qualities being 

 found abundantly within its borders. On the 

 revival of brickmaking in the fourteenth 

 century this county was one of the first dis- 

 tricts in which it was carried on. The tower 

 of Letcombe Bassett church is of brick with 

 stone dressings in the Early English style, 3 

 and was probably one of the earliest buildings 

 to be erected with the newly introduced 

 material. The good quality of the clay at 

 Reading, which belongs to the geological 

 formation known as the Reading Beds, com- 

 bined with the ease with which it can be 

 worked, occurring as it does on the hillsides on 

 both banks of the Kennet, caused the town 

 to be the chief centre of this industry in Berk- 

 shire from the first. The bed of fossil oyster 

 shells which was found near the base of the 

 Reading clays in the pits of Katesgrove or 

 Catsgrove early attracted the notice of the 

 curious. We find it mentioned by Dr. 

 Brewer, 4 Robert Plot, 5 Dr. William Stukeley a 

 and others, some of whom also give 

 accounts of the bricks and tiles which were 

 then made at that spot. These were not only 

 used for the houses of the town itself but 

 also in the surrounding villages. The bricks 

 for the seventeenth century church towers 

 of Wargrave, Ruscombe, Hurst and Shin- 

 field were probably obtained from the Kates- 

 grove kilns. The site of the old brickyard is 

 now built over, but further south, along the 

 same hillside, the clay is still worked at the 

 Waterlow kiln by Messrs. Poulton & Sons. 

 At Coley, on the opposite side of the Kennet, 

 the clay was worked up till 1877 by Messrs. 

 S. & E. Collier, but the available supply 



1 E. C. Davey, op. cit. 



2 A. C. Ramsey. (Mem. Geol. Survey, 1858), 

 On the Geology of Parts of Wilts and Berks, p. 27. 



<> Parker, Eccl. Topog. of Berks (1849). 

 1 Phil. Trans, xxii. 485 (1700). 

 ' Nat. Hist, of Oxford, p. 120 (1705). 

 Itinerarium Curiosum, p. 59 (1724). 



being used up their works were then removed 

 to Grovelands, between Reading and Tile- 

 hurst, where an extensive manufactory of 

 bricks, tiles, pottery and terra-cotta is carried 

 on by that firm. This clay is also used in 

 many other brickyards, not only near Reading, 

 but all along its main outcrop and also on 

 some of the many outliers which occur on the 

 hilltops in the chalk districts. Among the 

 principal kilns may be mentioned those at 

 Pinkney's Green, near Maidenhead, Knowl 

 Hill, Ruscombe, Shaw, Tilehurst, Upper 

 Basildon, Kintbury, Curridge, Wickham, and 

 many other places. 



The industry was carried on in Cookham 

 parish in very early times, and judging by the 

 exhausted clay pits must have been of some 

 local importance. Tiles were made there in 

 the year 1287, when they were sold at the 

 price of 2s. 2d. per thousand. 7 The names 

 Kiln Meadow and Kiln Platt denote the sites 

 of the former manufacture. The extensive 

 works at Pinkney's Green for bricks, tiles, and 

 terra-cotta were established in 1825 by Mr. 

 Charles Cooper, and are now carried on by 

 his descendants under the name of J. K. 

 Cooper & Sons. For many years the ma- 

 chinery was worked by horse-power, but 

 steam power was substituted about 30 years 

 go. The firm is noted for its terra-cotta work, 

 and the colour is entirely due to the natural 

 brick earth, and not to any artificial colouring. 

 They employ about 100 men, and the trade 

 is principally a home one, although they have 

 a good foreign trade also. 



Owing to the great demand for bricks, 

 caused by the increase of population in the 

 south-eastern part of the county, many brick- 

 yards have been opened in recent years near 

 Bracknell and Wokingham by Messrs. T. 

 Lawrence & Sons, The Bracknell Brick, Tile 

 and Pottery Co. and others. The material 

 used in this district is the London Clay and, in 

 some instances, the overlying Bagshot Beds. 

 The London Clay is also used for brick-making 

 on the south side of the Kennet at Newbury. 

 In the northern part of the county the Kim- 

 meridge Clay is worked near Cumnor by the 

 Chawley Brickworks Co. to meet the demand 

 created by the neighbouring city of Oxford. 

 The same clay is also dug at Faringdon and 

 at Drayton near Abingdon. In the Vale of 

 White Horse the Gault Clay is used for brick- 

 making at Uffington, Childrey and other 

 places. 



Sarsen stones, 8 or Greywethers, hardened 



7 Rogers, Hist, of Agriculture and Prices, ii. 434. 



8 Prof. Rupert Jones, paper in Berks, etc., Arch. 

 Jo-urn, vii. 54 (1901). 



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