Cattybrook Brickpit

Cattybrook Brickpit is a 2.2-hectare (5.4-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest near the village of Almondsbury, South Gloucestershire, notified in 1989. It began as a clay pit and brickworks.^[1]

Cattybrook Brickpit

Site of Special Scientific Interest
Location	South Gloucestershire
Grid reference	ST594835
Interest	Geological
Area	2.2 hectares (5.4 acres)
Notification	1989
Location map	English Nature

History

The Cattybrook Brick Company was established in 1864.^[2] In 1903 Cattybrook also acquired the nearby Shortwood Brickworks.^[2] From 1972, they were taken over by the Ibstock Group.^[2][3]

The brickworks are located immediately to the North of the Bristol and South Wales Union Railway, then under construction through the Severn Tunnel. By the end of 1883, the tunnel's enormous demand for bricks with which to line the tunnel was taking 100,000 bricks per month from Cattybrook. This was only a small proportion of the tunnel's need though and three other brickworks were supplying the tunnel, 1,200,000 per month in total.^[4] After completion of the tunnel, these brickworks and their masons were unemployed, leading to an over-supply of cheap bricks in the area and the first speculative housing developments in the new railway villages such as Rogiet and Pilning.

Notable buildings and structures using Cattybrook bricks

Notable buildings and structures built using Cattybrook bricks include

• Jacobs Wells Baths, a former public baths in Bristol^[5]
• Maidenhead Viaduct, a railway bridge across the River Thames in Maidenhead^[6]
• Montpelier High School, a girls secondary school in Bristol^[7]
• Severn Tunnel, a railway tunnel under the Severn Estuary between England and Wales^[4]
• The Granary, a distinctive building in Bristol built in the Bristol Byzantine style^[8]
• Merthyr Tydfil Town Hall, a municipal building^[9]