Wadsley bridge brick co

[frits_stuur]

I have a small collection of bricks made by Sheffield firms. One brick has impressed in its frog, "WADSLEY BRIDGE / BRICK CO" (WBBC). I have looked through the Directories (White's; Kelly's) in Local Studies library; but no WBBC seems ever have to been listed.

 

Anyone know anything about WBBC? Where? When? Who owned by? Etc.?

[Nodens]

It was on Kilner Way in the 50's, if I remember correctly.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadsley_Bridge

[PopT]

Just as a point of interest a lot of the brick terrace houses in Owlerton were built using bricks from the Wadsley Bridge Brick Works.

 

Happy Days! PopT

[sweetdexter]

It was on the right hand side going up,just past the bridge.

A lot of lads went to work there straight out of school.

At the time it seemed like good wages but it was the owners taking advantage of 15 year old kids and cheap labour.Not much of a future.

[awoollen]

I have a small collection of bricks made by Sheffield firms. One brick has impressed in its frog, "WADSLEY BRIDGE / BRICK CO" (WBBC). I have looked through the Directories (White's; Kelly's) in Local Studies library; but no WBBC seems ever have to been listed.

 

Anyone know anything about WBBC? Where? When? Who owned by? Etc.?

it was known as sheffield brick company

in 1946i used to work for a contractor who used to deliver brick for them

mostly on the new parson s cross estate i was 16 at the time it was just under the railway bridge on the right

is that any help sheffield brick com had three yards one on rutland road one on shiregreen lane

[frits_stuur]

Thanks Everyone! Like you people, Peter Harvey in STREET NAMES OF SHEFFIELD says, "Kilner Way [...] was the site of a brickworks operated by the Sheffields Brick Co. Ltd, Halifax Road". And the Wikipedia entry for Wadsley Bridge says, "the Kilner Way retail park opened in the 1970s, being built on the site of an old brick works and sandstone quarry".

 

However ...

 

It is my impression that the Sheffield Brick Co had impressed in the frogs of their bricks "SBC" (I have seen plenty of those around, including Parsons X). So, it would seem that "WADSLEY BRIDGE BRICK CO" would have been another enterprise. Of course, it is possible that Sheffield Brick Co took over the site from Wadsley Bridge Brick Co (or even vice versa); but, so far I have not seen any evidence for an independent Wadsley Bridge Brick Co, other than that brick I have ...

 

PopT: when you say, houses in Owlerton built with Wadsley Bridge bricks, do you actually mean evidentially Wadsley Bridge Brick Co; or, do you mean SBC?

 

Frits

[PopT]

frits stuur

 

As I wrote they were from the Wadsley Bridge Brickworks and marked up with the name on the frogs.

 

I know the brick houses on Owlerton near the park were built at the turn of the centurt before the Sheffield Brick Company took over.

 

Hope this helps. Happy Days! PopT

[frits_stuur]

frits stuur

 

As I wrote they were from the Wadsley Bridge Brickworks and marked up with the name on the frogs.

 

I know the brick houses on Owlerton near the park were built at the turn of the centurt before the Sheffield Brick Company took over.

 

Hope this helps. Happy Days! PopT

 

It certainly does help. Thanks. It confirms that hunting for documentary or pictorial evidence of Wadsley Bridge Brick Co. is not necessarily a wild goose chase. If and when anything of that nature eventuates, I'll report on the Forum. For the duration, it seems odd that it should be so hard to come by: for instance, why shouldn't it - say, "before Sthe Sheffield Brick Co. took over" - ever have been listed in the Directories under its own name?

[Nodens]

Just to confuse matters even further.

 

Wadsley Bridge, at the turn of the century, was part of Ecclesfield in the District of Wortley and not part of Sheffield.

 

Not that it would necessarily make a difference to the naming of a brick company.

[frits_stuur]

To add to the confusion even further …

 

A 1902 Directory in Sheffield's Local Studies library lists three brickworks as being located in Wadsley Bridge:

- Don Brick Co (Leppings Bridge);

- Klondyke Brick Co (Middlewood Road); and

- New Patent Plastic Brick Co.

But no Wadsley Bridge Brick Company.

I suppose it is possible that any of these three brickmaking companies might have adopted Wadsley Bridge Brick Co as 'just' a trade name. If so, both Don at Leppings Bridge and Klondyke at Middlewood Road seem to me to have hardly been located in the core area of Wadsley Bridge sufficiently for them to adopt 'Wadsley Bridge Brick Co' for a trade name. By this reasoning, it would have been the New Patent Plastic Brick Co that marketed Wadsley Bridge Brick Co bricks.

 

Moreover. From the Wortley register of building plans (Sheffield Archives CA 676) it appears that in 1894 both W. Mottram & Sons (3 August 1984) and J. Darlow (26 October 1894) had plans for a Brick Works at Wadsley Bridge approved; and much earlier (15 September 1882) Moss + Gamble had a Brick Factory approved.

As far as I know, the New Patent Plastic Brick Company was started by Charles Keyworth in the late 1890s; then in 1916 had a Mrs Elizabeth Birley as poprietess; and from then on belonged to the Sheffield Brick Co.: this was the brickworks off Halifax Road, where Kilner Way is now.

So Moss & Gamble (of the Wadsley Bridge forge), Mottram & Sons (whose core trade was builders' materials merchants) and/or J. Darlow (there was a lot of Darlows that were in the brickmaking trade) might have been being starting the Don and/or Klondyke brick works. But if not, presumably they might have been the owners of the Wadsley Bridge Brick Co. Once again, however, neither under their own names nor under the ostensible trade name do they ever seem to have been listed as brickmakers in the Directorys.

 

In other words: I do not understand the situation.

 

What I do know, is that in Wadsley Bridge 'proper', on the 1905 Ordnance Survey map, there is one site marked "Brick Field (disused)", and one site marked "Brick Works".

- The "Brick Field" is to the north across the road (then Back Lane; now more or less Baxter Road and Baxter Drive) from the Wadsley Bridge Works (Iron & Steel). This site has buildings indicated that on the earlier 1890 OS map (where the Brick Field was already "disused"!) were identified as kilns. One assumes that this was the site of Moss and Gamble's brickworks, perhaps exploited only to build their own premises with (what are now the apartments of 'Baxter Mews'): when was this edifice built?

- The "Brick Works" are to the south of Halifax Road next to the railway, i.e. the site of the New Patent Plastic Brick Company, later the Sheffield Brick Company (and now Kilner Way).

 

I would appreciate any input that might help to clarify these matters!