10/05/1927 – Ballochmyle Brick Company Limited, Knowehead Quarries, Locharbriggs, By Dumfries. 10 May 1927.
20/6/1979 – Offices of W G Patterson & Co, Ballochmyle Brickworks, Knowehead Quarry, Dumfries & Galloway Ballochmyle Brickworks was opened in 1935 at Knowehead Quarry, Locharbriggs, 3.2km north-east of Dumfries. The brickworks used waste sandstone dust and fragments from the quarry to make sand/lime bricks. The brickworks closed in 1977 but one quarry is still active. This shows the offices of W G Patterson & Co, which ran the quarry at Locharbriggs where Ballochmyle Brickworks was established. In such cases, it was not unusual for company buildings to be built using bricks made on-site, like the sand/lime bricks used to construct these offices. Ballochmyle Brickworks employed eleven men. As well as the foreman, there were four men responsible for preparing and mixing the sand and lime while another four pressed the mixture into bricks. Also employed, was a boiler man and another employee in charge of material supplies. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.
Information – The quarries attempted producing their own bricks made from the ‘Shimmers’ (waste from dressing the stone) which was crushed and mixed with lime. The bricks were then baked in a steam oven for several days to cure and harden them. They were never a success being regarded as too soft and prone to causing dampness. As a result of these problems only two blocks of houses in Kilmarnock Road, Mauchline were constructed with them in the late 1930s. A section of brick wall still remains today in the Haugh Road in Mauchline, where it was constructed as a loading point for the bricks onto road transport. The bricks were manufactured by The Ballochmyle Brick Company an offshoot of the Ballochmyle Quarries.
Below – Ballochmyle Brick Co Ltd Works – source.
09/08/1985 – Edinburgh Gazette – Ballochmyle Brick Company Limited winding up.
(Many thanks to Ian Roy for identifying much of the information on this page). Shotts Sand-Lime Brickworks, Shotts, North Lanarkshire aka locally as the ‘White Brickworks’. See also:- Northfield Brickworks, Shotts. (Note – SBH – The 1985 publication ‘A survey of Scottish brickmarks’ suggests these were two different brickworks albeit they were situated very close together….
Mauchline Brickworks, Mauchline, East Ayrshire. National Railway Museum inventory. Selwyn Pearce Higgins Archive. Contents … PSH/8/21 Notes made on visits to industrial railway systems in the west of Scotland, April – August 1943, including Ballochmyle Quarries and Ballochmyle Brick Company; Clyde Valley Power Company, Yoker; Shanks and McEwan, Bellshill; Ferniegar Sand Quarry, near Hamilton; etc….
Philpstoun Oil Works Brickworks, Linlithgow, West Lothian. Below – 1914 – Philpstoun Oil Works – site of the later brickworks?). 19/11/1920 – West Lothian Courier – New brickworks to be started at Philpstoun. Ground has been staked off for the erection of new brickworks at Philpstoun. The spent shale bings are to be utilised in…
21/09/1896 – Feodor Boas patent. Be it known that I, Feodor Boas, a subject of the Queen of Great Britain, residing at St. Hyacinthe, in the Province of Quebec, Dominion of Canada, have invented certain new and useful improvements in compounds of matter; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear,…
(Note – SBH – The Pumpherston Brickworks were also situated on Drumshoreland Road. Did they operate the same site as Kirkforthar Brick Co Ltd either at the same time for a period or one after the other?). Kirkforthar Brick Co Ltd, Drumshoreland Road, Pumpherston, Livingston, West Lothian EH53 0LG. Source – Tilcon coloured mortar, brick…
Many thanks to Stan Wilson, Dornoch for most of the information detailed here and for the permissions to reproduce the letters below. Stan’s father, Frank Wilson used to be employed at the Works as Manager. Lairg Quarry and Brick Company Ltd. Canmore – refers to the quarry but not the brickworks Lairg Quarry and Brickworks…
Found by Tam Moffet in Fife. Ballochmyle Brick Company Limited, Knowehead Quarries, Locharbriggs, By Dumfries. Sand and lime brick. Sand – lime works, Knowehead Quarry, Lochabriggs, Dumfriesshire. . . Below – This is a very similar version. It does look an earlier version but it was found in a river in Dumfries by Ian Suddaby,…
