Thursday, October 1, 2015

"Forgotten" St Albans Brick Pit Rediscovered

Today's BBC News talks of a large hole which has appeared in Fontmell Close overnight. But what do you expect when a Council allows houses to be built on a former brickpit, clearly marked on old maps, which almost certainly contained 100 year old unconsolidated town refuse.

Fifteen years ago I gave a talk on the History of Bernards Heath, St Albans (copy online), with particular reference to the brick works. When I gave the talk I was approached by someone who lived in the newly built Fontmell Close because their house was beginning to show signs of subsidence, because water off the roof was washing a hole under the corner of the house.

The brick pits are shown in the following map.

"5" is the location of Fontmell Close. The booklet records "Possibly William Bennett between about 1833-1865, later almost certainly Miskin’s until about 1893. Disused by 1897 Ordnance Survey"

The quarried area is clearly shown on the 1897 OS map - but it was later filled in. This was probably done by my Grandfather, Harry Finch Reynolds who, in addition to being the Town Vet, was a "Job Master" and who, for a few years before the first world war had the contract for the rubbish collection for all of St Albans - and the rubbish was used to fill the open brick pits on Bernards Heath. The rubbish would have been taken there by horse and cart and almost certainly would not have been significantly compacted. It was probably covered with earth to allow the ground to be used for farming.

It is interesting that in the early 20th century Bernards Heath had a bad smell. The suet factory boiled bones, the effluent from the cows at Heath farm ended up in "the Black Pond" (a disused brick pit), initially there was the smell of burning bricks - only to be replaced but the smell of decaying town garbage.

12 comments:

  1. Hi Chris,

    Rather than the collapse of a brick clay pit, as there was also a lime kiln on the site is it not possible that the chalk it processed came from a "dene hole" and that it is the collapse of this which has produced the "sink hole" or more correctly "crown hole" from the likely mining in the chalk that underlies the clay. The chalk may have been extracted both for conversion into lime and to improve the clay for the brick making.

    Regards,

    Alan Pearson alpenergy@gmail.com

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    1. The old Ordnance Survey maps do not indicate the depth of the brick pits and some could have continued down into the chalk for lime making. If there is now a more or less open channel down into the chalk it could affect the quality of the drinking water supply, which comes from the deep borehole at Stonecross. In the early 20th century there was concern about such contamination from the "Black Pond" - the brick pit that took the waste from the cow sheds at Heath Farm - and also the blind wells used by many houses in the area before they were connected to the city sewerage system.

      A key factor in the current situation is that virtually the whole estate is built over the infilled brick (and chalk?) pit and simply filling the current hole with concrete mat not stop other similar collapses occurring if road and house roof water continues to use the infilled pit as a soakaway.

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  2. The areas 9 and 10 on the map have had housing on them for approx 80 - 100 years. Is it likely that these are more stable areas? Obviously, there have also been the more recent additions of Archers Fields and Chaucers Close.

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    1. Area 9 is between Heath Road and Walton Street, possibly extending over to the St Saviour's boundary. The history of the brickworks is given at http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/projects/brickmakers-talk/brickmakers/brickmaker-dickson-james.htm but the brickmaker was also developing the area he may have left the unexcavated areas for the houses along the edges of the roads - with the brick pits where the gardens are now. There was a case of a child drowning in one of his pits in 1890.

      Alternatively he may have carted some of the brick earth from a pit on Bernards Heath.

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    2. Area 10 involved the brickworks where Jacob Reynolds' bricks were made - see http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/projects/brickmakers-talk/brickmakers/brickmaker-reynolds.htm

      The 1897 map does not show any pits on the area adjacent to the school, but the brick works appear to have continued for a few years after that date. When Archer's Fields and Chaucers Close went up I wondered if anyone had checked how solid the ground was, as the area is fine for building in areas free from hidden pits.

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  3. I wonder if the huge hole behind the flats in The Dell off Sandpit Lane is also caused by diggings. It is very deep with mature trees growing from the floor.
    There are also what look like areas of historical subsidence in my neighbourhood (The Park) along the old boundary between St Albans city and district and the medeival Marshallswick estate.
    Do the old maps show any clay or chalk pits here?

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    1. My research was mainly concerned with the Bernards Heath Brickworks but my online biography of the brickmaker W.W. Dixon (http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/projects/brickmakers-talk/brickmakers/brickmaker-dixon-w-a.htm) includes the following:

      "The latest reference comes from the 1904 Directory of Clayworkers which records that Mr W A Dixon, Alma Road, St Albans, was agent for the Sandpit Lane Brick Fields. The 1898 large scale OS map shows a brickworks about a mile east of Bernards Heath, near Marshalswick, and just north of Sandpit Lane. A 1906 reference suggests that the disused brick pits at Marshalswick were being used by John Cable, a local jobmaster, as a tip for the city rubbish. However they may have been taken over by W. G. Bennett."

      The Library in the Maltings may well have relevant old maps.

      There will have been other brick pits scattered around the St Albans area as new estates were built in Victorian times and the builders made bricks close to, if not actually on, the building site. The last brickworks in the ares was opened to make the bricks for Hill End Hospital and this was still working until the start of the second world war. (see http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/projects/brickmakers-talk/brickmakers/brickmaker-owen.htm). I have no idea whether any houses have been built on the site of the former brickworks

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  4. I suspect that part of the problem relates to storm water drainage in this case, and also in several other Hertfordshire "sinkholes" in recent years. Before the filled in pit was redeveloped rain would have soaked in uniformly across the area. Cover the area with houses and road surfaces and the water is concentrated into a few places - and I suspect that there was a road drain in the area of the latest collapse.

    For the builder it is cheap and easy - just dig a soak-away pit and all the rain water rapidly vanishes - and who cares where it has gone because no one can see it. But if the soak-away pit is in a rubbish tip with voids the greatly increased flow in a very small area is bound to have serious effects, and the same thing could happen where water from roofs is channeled into similar soak-aways. Of course the inappropriate drainage will only become apparent years later - when the builder has long since left the scene ... ...

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  5. Hi - what's the history of the 3 houses on stonecross close behind Devdas restaurant ? Are they sitting on claypits also or safe from sinkholes ?

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    1. Brick earth tends to be on the top of all the hills around St Albans, and in doing my research there were references to brick pits whose location is unknown and in general I am not prepared to make any comment on any property unless it is clear built in an area which pits are clearly mared on maps such as the 1897 Ordnance Survey map.

      I don't live in St Albans but once I found out that the Devdas restaurant was the historic Cricketers' Public House I realized that I have limited special knowledge. (For the history of the Cricketers see http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/answers/answers-2003/ans-0348-seabrook.htm).

      The houses you mention are in the former garden of Calverton which was built in about 1900 by my grandfather Harry Finch Reynolds (see http://www.hertfordshire-genealogy.co.uk/data/ancestors/reynolds-harry-finch.htm) who was later responsible for tipping town refuse into some of the disused brick pits in the area. I think it extremely unlikely that he would have tipped smelly town refuse into any pit in his own back garden. Whether there are any older filled pits is another matter because much of the adjacent common land area had been worked over and there were many humps and hollows in the 18th century.

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  6. Hello, Chris. I'm intrigued by your knowledge of the Bernard Heath brickworks and your explanation for the recent collapse there. Do you have and historic photographs or plans of the quarries / buildings?

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    1. I only wish I did.

      The information on my website (including that in the Bernards Heath booklet) was bases on old ordnance survey maps (copies available in the St Albans Library) plus some older field maps which did little more than give me field names. In addition there were written documents - such as newspaper reports - which allowed me to work out roughly where there were working pits - allowing me to say which of the pits on the OS maps were which.

      Most of the brickworks building would have been temporary wooden structures - and no-one would have wasted there time drawing up detailed plans - or taking photographs.

      There may well have been other pits I know nothing about beyond the fact that there could be brick built houses in the St Albans area where the brick earth came from a pit in the garden (or from where a cellar was dug) ... In fact over the whole of the hilltop area in the Hertfordshire Chilterns there could be filled in brick or chalk pits - or very deep wells - almost anywhere.

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