For over 40 years, the White Hill Tile & Brick Works had been producing hand made bricks. Established by Mr Oliver Barker and his brother Arthur, at Arborfield in 1934, the works were sited in an area rich in clay. This clay is dug from the ground and placed in a pit. Water is mixed with it and the mixture is then transferred by skips and tipped into a machine which smooths the clay and extrudes it like a sausage onto a table in front of the brickmaker.
To make each of the 4,000 semi-circular capping bricks for the seven Basingstoke Canal accomodation footbridges, a lump of the clay is thrown into a wooden mould of the required shape. Excess clay is removed with a piece of wire and the mould is then tapped on one edge to loosen the shaped brick from the mould.
The brick is gently removed from the mould and laid out ready for the drying out process.
Drying out takes place in a warm ventilated area over the firing kilns. During this process the bricks lose up to a third of their weight. When dry, the bricks, still brown in colour, are ready to be fired.
The bricks are stacked in layers inside the kiln which, when full, is bricked up.
The firing process lasts up to 48 hours, and when cool the kiln is opened and the bricks, now cherry red, removed.
Each of the 4,000 bricks made for the canal bridges in 1975 cost 20p each.
The brickworks closed in the 1990s.
[from an article byDavid Robinsonin BC News 62, July 1975]
