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Stoke-on-Trent Districts: Bradwell

 

 
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Bradwell, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire.


Metallic Tileries:

Around 1900 J.T. and W. Rowley opened a brick and tile factory north west of Bradwell Hall by the Talke Road (now A34). The works rapidly expanded and within 15 years had more than doubled in size and the clay pit occupied a substantial area below the hall. 

1937 OS map showing the Metallic Tileries
1937 OS map showing the Metallic Tileries


Now a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI)

This is the only known site in the North Staffordshire Coalfield showing the unconformable contact between the Etruria Formation red-beds and the black shales and sandstones of the Newcastle Formation (Middle Carboniferous). Lake sediments at the contact between the formations contain a most unusual fauna of non-marine bivalves, ostracods, fish and annelid worms, and a unique non-marine algal flora. The Etruria Formation here yields a fauna which appears to agree with the Anthraconauta phillipsi Biozone. This indicates that it is markedly younger than the red-beds of the South Staffordshire and Warwickshire coalfields. This demonstration that these red-bed formations become younger towards the north has important implications for understanding the geography of Britain during the middle Carboniferous Period, and the gradually increasing aridity of the climate at that time. Metallic Tileries is therefore a key site for British Carboniferous geology.

Aerial view of the Metallic Tileries site - Bradwell
Aerial view of the Metallic Tileries site - Bradwell
running along the top is the outcrop of the marl and coal formation
top left is Bradwell Hall, incorporated in the nursing home
to the right is the A34 Talk Road and bottom right corner is
Parkhouse Industrial Estate East

 

Contact between Newcastle and Etruria formations at Metallic Tileries
Contact between Newcastle and Etruria formations at Metallic Tileries
Photo: C.J. Cleal

 

Metallic TileriesMetallic TileriesMetallic Tileries
Metallic Tileries
photo: 1977  Ian Bailey


smoke from a brickworks beehive Kiln
smoke from a brickworks beehive Kiln
photo: 1956
 

 
next: 'My native town and its social condition'
previous: Pottery in Bradwell