Birkby’s Brickworks

Gauge: 18in

The extensive brickworks of H. Birkby and Sons Ltd at Storr Hill, Wyke, Bradford was founded in 1869. It had eight individual brick kilns each fired by its own furnace. Clay was brought from an adjacent clay pit to the processing shed, or pug mill, by a 250 yard long, chain hauled plateway set on an incline. Each steel wagons had a forked bracket on the top which accepted the haulage chain. The flangeless wheels ran on lengths of steel angle, similar to the very earliest plateways.

Birkby’s Brickworks was in operation until 1982.