Chailey Brickworks

After a visit to the Balcombe railway viaduct, the participants of the Nature Corridors project were interested in seeing how bricks were made and so they visited the Chailey Brickworks. This is their report.

Drag and drop exercise by the participants.

This is us at Chailey brickworks. We are standing in front of the quarry. This is where they get the clay to make the bricks. These bricks are like the ones the Balcombe viaduct is made from.

Stuart told us about the conveyor belt that the wet, raw clay goes up to be put into moulds and pressed into brick shapes. They need to go through the drying process before they are baked or 'fired'.

Anne is looking at the fresh clay coming in on the conveyor belt and right up into the factory.

These are the bricks after they have been in the drier for 24 hours. They need to be dried before they go in the kiln to be fired otherwise they would explode. After this they get stacked for baking or 'firing'.

Here Carole is taking a closer look at the dried bricks checking for any faulty ones.

This is the big oven called a kiln. Inside the dried bricks are stacked by hand, a very hard job. Once the oven area is full of bricks they are surrounded by a layer of special bricks in order to keep the heat in.

Here we are standing by a kiln that has finished being 'built'. You can see the outer edge of bricks have also all been laid by hand and these help with insulation. It can take up to 3 weeks for the bricks to be 'fired'.

Here are the finished products. They have been quality tested and stacked all by hand. The men sorting them can tell if the brick is good or bad just by picking it up and judging the weight