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Report - - Stewartby Brickworks (PIC HEAVY)- March 2021 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Stewartby Brickworks (PIC HEAVY)- March 2021

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jxck.urbex

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Introduction

Stewartby Brickworks

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After many a weekends of monotonous lockdown, me and my friend caved to the idea of a little explore up the country for the day. Starting at the great time of 7am, we set off to bedford after only a couple
hours of planning the day before and £30 in petrol (and a new camera but we'll gloss over that). Closing in on the destination, we see the great chimneys and am met with a feeling I hadn't know in quite a while.
Anxiety. For the first time in a while, I felt anxious about an explore. We arrive in Bedford and feel out of place, but trudge onwards until we happen upon an unncertain entrance. So begins our story!


History

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Based in Stewartby (the former Wooten farm settlements), a town was built around the ideals of the Stewart Family and their London Brickworks identity. Within this newly-renamed village, Stewartby Brickworks was born and ultimately built. As an extension to Pulborough's brick making at Fletton Brick in 1898, new brick works started popping up in the (then) Wooten settlements such as yours truely. London Brickworks then merged with the extension brick works in 1936, subsequently renaming the Wooten to Stewartby and thus Stewartby Brickworks was born! Around the brickworks, and entire village was formally built which enabled a larger workforce which resulted in expansion of the works which meant more income, which meant more housing. I think you get the picture! Eventually Stewartby Brickworks grew to provide as much as 20% of England's bricks by the 1970s, or 500 million bricks annually! Not only that, but the brickworks had both 167 brick chimneys and the largest kiln in the world (up to that point).


What goes up, must (unfortunately) come down. New regulations began to be established within the early 2000s, detailing a necessity to lower emission such as Sulphur Dioxide, as so began the downfall of the British Brick giant. The brickworks found itself struggling against high sulfur dioxide emissions, spending as much as £1.2 million on emission regulation strategies, which ultimately ended up failing. Ultimately, the redevelopment costs became uneconomical for Hanson, the then-owners of the brickworks and such the Brick works was officially decommissioned and closed in May of 2008. Instantly, demolition works began, leaving only 4 of the potential 167 chimneys standing. Luckily however, the last remaining chimneys where saved from they undue end when they where listed for preservation by the Bedfordshire Council, such to commemorate the incredible tale that is Stewartby's brick roots!



Exploration

Overall, the explore at this place was phenomenal. Definetly one of the greats of England dare I say! This part of the report will be broken into two pieces as I simply have too many photos of my 4 hour romp. The first of these two parts are of the kilns and the first hopper-less building I encountered. To say this was an explore would be an understatement, we trudged around the whole perimeter poking for ways in, going in totally cold in what we thought may have been heavily guarded. Eventually, after doing more jumping than I would have liked, we ended up towards the rear of the whole sight looking in. Ill let the pictures do the talking.

Warning PIC HEAVY!!!

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And so concludes part 1 of the explore (for now atleast, until I go back again)
;)
 

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jxck.urbex

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Part 2 : The exploration of the "Hopper Building"

as I will now call it.

Not really sure what It did, all I know its that it is fantastic. After a sketchy crossing, we began to roam the iron giant. Here is what I got.

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There it is! My report of Stewartby Brickworks. My photos do not do this place justice and neither do my sub-par cinematography skills. As such, I will be going again shortly to ammend this :)
But thats all from me for now.​


Constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated!!! happy hunting friends.

Jxck.urbex signing out, Thanks for reading!
 

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HughieD

28DL Regular User
Regular User
Nice mix of B/W and colour images. Still well worth a look despite the idiot's attempts to burn the place down.
 

KPUrban_

Surprisingly Unsurprising
Regular User
Surprising how much of the so called "hopper building" survived the fire, unless that was the canteen I'm thinking of. The kiln buildings are rather nice structures.
 

jxck.urbex

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
Surprising how much of the so called "hopper building" survived the fire, unless that was the canteen I'm thinking of. The kiln buildings are rather nice structures.
The fire’s impact was actually fairly small from what I could see, as for the kiln buildings, they’re phenomenal like the rest of the place!
 

Giymo85

Amateur and proud
28DL Full Member
To be honest, other than the outward cosmetics, it wasn't obvious there was a fire at all :/ All the better for us!

It is obvious if you've been a few times. You used to be able to cross a landing up there into a room over the electrical workshop. One wall up there was pretty much gone, the other three still had that lovely old blue/white half paint set up meaning a really nice picture over the open land towards the landfill.

Now you'd have to cross 30ft of air to get to it as the fire took the already sketchy floor. I think the floor to the room itself is still intact.
 

jxck.urbex

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
It is obvious if you've been a few times. You used to be able to cross a landing up there into a room over the electrical workshop. One wall up there was pretty much gone, the other three still had that lovely old blue/white half paint set up meaning a really nice picture over the open land towards the landfill.

Now you'd have to cross 30ft of air to get to it as the fire took the already sketchy floor. I think the floor to the room itself is still intact.
You could? The electrical workshop looked sectioned off and ransacked when I went, maybe Im thinking of somewhere else.
Either way, would have been nice if the place was never burnt atall :rolleyes:
 

Giymo85

Amateur and proud
28DL Full Member
You could? The electrical workshop looked sectioned off and ransacked when I went, maybe Im thinking of somewhere else.
Either way, would have been nice if the place was never burnt atall :rolleyes:

You're mostly right. Although you could get to the room above it didn't lead down to the workshop.

This was one I took up there.

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