Acocks Green History Society
Hay Mills
866 Cottage, Garden and Tile Sheds (owner William Gilby, occupier Thomas Greenhill and others)
Location: south side of the Coventry Road, west corner of Redhill Road. The Coventry Road has been widened over this site.
867 Brickkiln Piece (owner William Gilby, occupier Thomas Greenhill)
Location: triangular area south of the Coventry Road between Kings Road and Ada Road.
376 Tile House and Sheds (owner Charles Thornton, occupier Daniel Bishop)
Location: east side of junction of Coventry road and Deakins Lane, in the angle. See the map just above this entry for the location.
868 Cottages, Brickyards, Sheds and Land (owner Thomas Mansfield, occupier himself)
Location: buildings between the ends of Ada Road and Arthur Road, still shown on the 1888 map as a brick works. Some of the area may still be open. See the Tithe Map extract for 866 and 867 above
for the site in 1847.
851 Tile House Piece with Tile House (owner Joseph Martin, occupier himself)
Location: buildings south side of Coventry Road opposite Preston Road, overbuilt by a house called Stonyhurst. The Coventry Road has been widened over this site. Joseph Martin is listed in a
directory of 1841 as a blacksmith, tile maker etc.
855 Brick Kiln Field (owner Joseph Martin, occupier himself)
Location: the field is now covered by Hilderstone Road.
381 Brick Kiln Piece (owner Humphrey Pountney, occupier John Yeomans)
Location: there is what appears to be a structure in a field on the east side of Holder Road, which is still open in the recreation ground. Just north of there was the Fast Pits, later Fast Pits
Farm. See the Tithe Map extract for 851 and 855 above for the site in 1847.
A Joseph Kemp is listed in a directory of 1850 as a brick and tile maker, Coventry Road. This may be in the South Yardley section rather than here.
Later, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries large brickworks developed at Hay Mills.
The kilns near the Coventry Road are shown as a brick works, as mentioned above, but the directories do not show a works there at that time, unless Henry Powley was not on Speedwell Road as Stephenson states. However, it is possible to see two pits and two sets of kilns at the bottom of this map. It is possible that this site near the Coventry Road is that of Skelding and Barkling/Barklam (1879, 1881 listings). Frank Barklam, whose home is the Causeway, Milton Villas on the 1881 Census, is listed there as a Master Bricklayer, employing five hands. The works is described as at Red Hill in the directories.
Shipways/Derringtons
In 1878 Henry Shipway is listed as a brick and tile maker as well as a timber merchant, at the Speedwell Brick Works, Red Hill. In 1884 Edwin Shipway is listed as a brick maker at the Speedwell
Brick Works. It is curious that there is no listing between the two dates. Shipways were builders, and had a timber yard, and a wharf on the canal. None of the family living at Hay Mills
described themselves as brick makers on the 1881 Census. According to the Hay Mills Project, several local roads are named after the Shipways: Ada Road, Berkeley Road and Berkeley Road East
(Berkeley in Gloucestershire, where the Shipways had come from), George Road and Shipway Road, and Wharfdale Road. Derringtons had bought Edwin Shipway's yard by 1888.
Powleys/Derringtons
Henry Powley is listed at the Yardley Brick Works, Hay Mills, in 1879, and continues to appear until 1890. On the 1881 Census he is resident at at Olton Lodge, Yardley Road, and is described as a
brick maker employing eight men and two boys. His yard, which was adjacent to Shipways' former yard on Speedwell Road according to Stephenson, was bought by Derringtons around 1890.
Derringtons carried on until around 1920, when they sold the pit to the Corporation to use for dumping rubbish. They carried on as brick merchants.
Bayliss/Waterloo
The Bayliss Brickworks was the other large brick works, across Speedwell Road. Albert Stephenson wrote that it had been started by Henry Hemming, who had been associated with Derringtons, in 1895
(the directories list him from 1900). Perhaps Henry Hemming started at the small works nearer the Coventry Road after Skelding and Barklam left. He later sold the Speedwell Road works to Frank
and William Bayliss around 1913. Bayliss carried on until c. 1969, when their pit was 125 feet deep, and a local landmark.
