Old Brick Kiln

Image: © Simon Carey Taken: 2 Jun 2012

Located next to Lewes Road and believed to be the last bottle shaped kiln left in the country. Kiln Cottage (previously Brickyard Cottage) is on the left whilst the roof to The Liar is on the right. Both were built in the 1920s on the site of a former brickworks that later became a whiting works. The first reference to a brickyard in this location occurs in the 1817 Land Tax registry which probably gives some idea of the construction of the original kiln. The brickworks and subsequent whiting works continued until its closure in 1913 with much of the former industrial buildings removed and the land given over to house building. However, the kiln survived but began to deteriorate until the late 1970s when it was decided to restore it. The restoration involved the careful dismantling of the structure and a painstaking rebuild using as many of the original materials as possible. See pages 2-24 of Sussex Industrial History (1982) for a detailed article on the reconstruction, http://sias.pastfinder.org.uk/sih_1970_2008/12-1982.pdf

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0