It won’t come as a surprise to any local gardener that brickmaking was a big industry round here 100-150 years ago. Our heavy clay soil, as well as the local chalk downland, made this area an obvious site for several brickfields over the centuries. In fact, in the late nineteenth century in Hampshire there were 100-150 works producing clay products such as bricks, tiles and pipes.
It was in around 1870 that it was discovered that our clay soil was particularly suitable for brickmaking. There were three brickfields in Chandler’s Ford. The biggest, which was also one of the largest in the country, was Bell’s, which occupied the land now taken by Chandler’s Ford industrial estate. The position of the railway no doubt helped its success as this was the main means of transporting the finished bricks. A short single-track branch line ran through the brickfield, joining the Eastleigh-Romsey line at the station near the signal box. The whole process of clay extraction, moulding to shape and firing was done on site. This last was not always popular with local residents due to the fumes emanating from the kilns. This brickfield had the honour of providing 35,000 bricks for the construction of the Royal Courts of Justice in the 1870s.
Other, smaller, brickyards in Chandler’s Ford were in the Fryern Hill area, in Oakmount Road and later in Scantabout, and in Common Road.
These brickfields were used for the construction of houses in Chandler’s Ford and Eastleigh, and also for the Railway Carriage Works. Workers’ houses (still there) were constructed along Bournemouth Road, as well as shops and a post office. Local school teachers often complained that boys were either late of absent as they had been up all night working in the brickfields.
Brickmaking declined in the twentieth century. The two world wars shrank production as men were drafted into the forces, as well as a reduced need as few building projects were undertaken. During World War ll the light from the kilns also caused a bombing risk. After 1945 new materials, such as concrete, glass and steel, were starting to be used for building, causing further decline in brickmaking. By 1971 all the Chandler’s Ford brickfields had closed, with only six remaining throughout the county.
Related posts:
The Main Road Through Chandler’s Ford: Historical Snapshots (Part 2)
World War II and afterwards in Chandler’s Ford
The Main Road Through Chandler’s Ford: Historical Snapshots (Part 1)
Barbara Hillier: Story of My Great Uncle Wilfred Herbert Hillier and His Memorial Plaque
Past Hospitals in Chandler’s Ford
It is great to see this almost forgotten history of the brickworks in Chandlers Ford highlighted. I have spent many years researching this and have written a book, “The Chandlers Ford Brick Industry”, which is available at Chandlers Ford Library and the libraries in Winchester and Southampton.
I’m afraid there are a few inaccuracies in your report. There were at least four different sites, the main one where the industrial site is now located in fact had 7 or 8 different yards. There were also brickworks on Common Road and Constantine Ave. as well as one on Velmore Road. This one was owned by Joseph Bull & Sons and was the first in the area. Chandlers Ford brickworks did indeed supply bricks for the Royal Courts of Justice and the usual number quoted is 35 million, however I have found evidence that proves the number was far fewer than this, but the important bricks, the ones that show, were all made here. I will post some photos. Brick making in Chandlers Ford completely died out before WW2.
The photograph shown of the brick makers, was this taken in Chandlers Ford?
Jim Beckett.
I was born in Station Lane and as a boy played in the ruin of the old brickworks in the “brick field as we called it the railway line went by the side of the house below our front and extended out to the “iron pond” probably where excess brick dust was tipped as it was always reddish in colour , and I remember you telling me Jim that the machinery from Chandler’s Ford was re-installed at Bursledon brickworks.
Great to see more interest in the old brickworks , well done Christine.
Are you still volunteering at Bursledon Jim we never did get that meeting ?
I believe the photograph is in one of Barbara Hilliers books so likely is Chandlers Ford .
Yes Roger, I’m still at Bursledon. The museum opens again in March. You’re right about the machinery, I beleive it was moved around 1902 but scrapped in the 1930’s.
Christine, do you know anything about the photograph of the brickmakers please?
I wonder how many older people are left in Chandler’s Ford who used to go fishing (or in fact learned to fish) in Bundy’s Lake, which was right in the brickworks area a hundred yards or so down Brickfield Lane and about 50 yards to the left, roughly where the back of the meat packing firm now sits?
It was an idyllic place for us little lads, even if we had to keep it from our poor worried mums that we were going to such a deep water hole despite not being able to swim.
There were all sorts of fish in there, carp, tench, perch, roach, rudd etc, plus eels, frogs and newts, lizards and slow worms, all of which reptiles were abundant in the lovely Chandler’s Ford of the 1960s.
The only nearby building I remember was the wooden 1st Chandler’s Ford Scout Group hut over the road and a little way up the hill, where it still stands. Other than that we were surrounded by wasteland and oak trees.
Down the bottom of the hill were a number of very obviously man-made square ponds, one called the Lily Pond, full of large newts. They were in thick undergrowth by then, so perhaps were clay pits that had been closed down decades before.
But Bundy’s was paradise to us little lads, high banks and low banks, areas of reeds and bullrushes and bogs, teeming with wildlife.
I’ve never seen a photo of it, and doubt any were taken.
One summer evening our cubs group was taken across to a spot nearby to Bundy’s to cook bangers, spuds and beans over an open fire, which was fabulous fun. Nowadays just the risk assessment would deter any scoutmaster from getting involved in such an event.
Eventually a friend reported to us with huge sadness the terrible news that ‘they’ were filling in Bundy’s, and worse still they’d had no regard whatsoever for the fish etc. Around 7pm that summer’s evening we raced down with makeshift containers to rescue the poor fish who had been squashed over into a small remaining patch of shallow, muddy water. We collected as many poor fish as we could and took them home to our garden ponds, which so many people had in those days.
My roach and rudd lived in my garden pond for many years, safe from developers and the apparently boundless evil of this sort of adult. It had a lasting impact on us lads, all growing up to have a strong dislike of the type of person and organisation that would do such a thing. Nobody seemed to care about the wildlife.
I’m thankful though that we got to enjoy Bundy’s Lake for a few years, before the inevitable happened, and I have wonderful memories of that little piece of paradise. I wouldn’t exchange my childhood for one spent in a darkened bedroom playing video games, not for all the tea in China.
Thank you, David, for a lovely picture of a wonderful childhood.