Brick and tile works on Ebernoe Common, 592m SSW of Mill House

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1005816
Date first listed:: 14-Apr-1980

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1005816
Date first listed:: 14-Apr-1980
Location Description:: Legacy Record - This information may be included in the List Entry Details.

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: West Sussex
District:: Chichester (District Authority)
Parish:: Ebernoe
National Park:: SOUTH DOWNS
National Grid Reference:: SU 97904 27479

Reasons for Designation

The brick and tile works on Ebernoe Common, 592m SSW of Mill House are a rare example of a small 18th century industrial manufacturing site used in the production of bricks and tiles. The clay pits are the result of the extraction of the raw material for the tiles and bricks. After it was dug the clay would have been left to break down over the winter and then mixed with sand and lime. It was then ground in the pug mill and the brick or tiles were shaped in the moulding shed. They were then dried in the drying shed on racks. Once dry they would be fired in the updraught kiln. This would have reached a temperature of around 1100 degrees centigrade and was heated continually, drawing air from underneath. The brick and tile works on Ebernoe Common have not been disturbed by later development and are an unusual survival given that the works were never enlarged or mechanised. Despite restoration, the timber-fired updraught kiln is of particular interest.

Details

The monument is situated on gently sloping ground on Ebernoe Common near Brickkiln Rough. It includes a brick and tile works, dating from at least the 18th century, with an updraught kiln, moulding shed and two of the clay pits which exist in the vicinity. The drying sheds and a pug mill survive as buried remains. The restored updraught kiln is rectangular in plan and constructed of red brick. It has an open top firing chamber with brick buttressing on three sides. Below ground level on the fourth side are the stokeholes, which are sheltered by a tiled roof. It has twin stokeholes with semi-circular brick arches to the fire box and a perforated raised floor on which to place the bricks in the firing chamber. The kiln was originally fired by wood. There is documentary evidence for brickworks at Ebernoe in 1693. However the brickworks on this site are first shown on maps of 1795 by William Gardner and Thomas Gream, which record the layout in some detail. It changed very little between 1795 until the works went out of use during the 1930's. It is shown as 'The Brickkiln, house, yards, garden' on a map of 1813 at which time it was owned by William Peachey Esq. The updraught kiln was restored between 1980 and 1982.

Sources: West Sussex HER 1852 - MWS5175. NMR SU92NE13. PastScape 249799. 2009. Weald & Downland Open Air Museum Service to Schools. Making Bricks by Hand. URL: http://www.openairclassroom.org.uk/Further%20information/information-making%20bricks%20by%20hand.htm [Accessed 29-JUL-2009].

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: WS 482
Legacy System:: RSM - OCN

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.