Fletton Brickworks (1935)

Only just seen this. I worked as a kiln burner (the voice-over here refers to him as a stoker) at the London Brick Commpany fletton brick producing yard at Stewartby in Bedford from 1979 to 1992. I can assure anyone watching that the process was exactly the same as here in 1935. The machinery looked the same and the the top of the kiln was exactly the same apart from the later efition of a rail track which carried a metal structure roughly the size of a trlephone box around the kikn from chamber to chamber. It housed a "Kent" machine (later changed to Honeywell) which was hooked up to a series of thermacouples - 10 ft long metal lances - that went into those small holes we are shown to measure the heat in the chamber (up to just under 1000°). Apart from that, this could have been filmed in 1985. There were around 1500 men employed at the Stewartby yard when I started.

We still call it Old Fletton.

Local to me, great video