Whenever Nottingham’s old brickworks are talked about on local history sites, people tend to remember just one or two of them. Those that they lived near or played in as children. There were in fact many brickyards operated by several companies.
One such company was The Nottingham Patent Brick Company.
Mapperley Brickworks was one of their operations.
It was initially set up between Woodborough Road and Sherwood Vale.
The Penarth Gardens estate is there now.
As this quarry was exhausted, they moved to an area between Woodthorpe Road and Woodthorpe Drive. This is where the Springwood Gardens is now.
Quarrying then moved to an area between Woodthorpe Drive and Breck Hill Road. This is now Breck Hill Park.
The actual brick-making remained at the original site, and the bricks were taken by rail and transferred to trains at Sherwood Station.
Map showing Mapperley Brickworks and the railway that served it at Sherwood Station.
Woodthorpe Drive is the limit of development.
You can see Brick Hill Farm, from which Breck Hill Road took its name.
The map is probably from around 1890.
Mapperley Brickworks in the winter of 1955.
It closed in 1965.
Here are some personal memories of Mapperley Brickworks taken from the Facebook Group called Nottingham From The Owd Days
We moved to Porchester Road in 1955. The brickyard became our playground. The ‘worked out’ section was all ponds full of frogs, toads and newts. We had to be careful not to get too close to the rail line or we would be yelled at and chased by a chap called Chokka. (Bill Logan)
I always played near that building. I found newts in a pond there. I was once chased off too. (Carol)
Got the best newts up at that brickyard in the 50s. We called the salamanders big black newts. Sometimes we’d swim in the ponds. (Trevor Palethorpe)
Loved playing in the brickyards in the late 40s/early 50s. I remember once climbing in a truck and being shouted at by a workman. It was often very slippery on the clay by the pools of water. I remember picking branches off the pussy willow trees. (Margaret)
Oh remember it very well! “ off bounds” playground We lived in the end cottage on the corner of Bennett Street and Woodborough Road. Spent hours there and on Woodthorpe Park. I remember when they blew the chimneys down. Lots of memories (Claire Green)
I remember the old clay-pit ponds from the 1970s, full of old bikes and junk. We messed about in them as kids. The abandoned quarry off Breck Hill Road was unusual, as the middle of the quarry had a ridge of clay in the middle with a cliff on both sides. It must have been 60 feet high. I guess it is still there underneath the earth that was used to fill it and create the football pitches that are there now. (Alan)