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The Old Brickworks, Lower Halstow

The Wharf

The western side of the Wharf, together with the slipway and the large area known as ‘The Brickfields’ is owned by Lower Halstow Parish Council.  This area, along with the adjoining housing development, comprised the former ‘Eastwood & Co’. brickmaking business, with the wharf and its sheltered access to the estuary being critical to its operation.

Brick making commenced in Lower Halstow in the early 1840s, driven primarily by an insatiable demand for bricks from a Victorian London, which was rapidly expanding following the end of the war with France in 1815. By the 1860s brickmaking in North Kent had become a major employer, second only to the dockyard at Chatham. Lower Halstow was transformed from an agricultural hamlet to an industrial brick making village, with an expanding population and infrastructure to match.

 

Of course, making bricks was one thing but they had to be delivered, and so began a logistics operation involving fleets of Thames Sailing Barges transporting the bricks to London, whilst also returning with the capital's combustible waste to fire the kilns. Sand for the brickmaking process was also carried from the beaches at Leigh nearby. To facilitate this operation, a supply of barges was required and so an entire Barge-building industry was born at Lower Halstow, which constructed these fine vessels for nearly fifty years.

 

Central to all operations was the wharf at Lower Halstow, and from early photos it can be seen to be thriving and indeed looking more like a river port. The barge-building industry was renowned for its very fine quality craft which continued right up until the turn of the century, with the final two barges the ‘Norfolk’ and the ‘Lincoln’, being commissioned in 1901. After this the barge-building operations were relocated to Milton, to make way for ever more brick storage and loading operations at Lower Halstow.

 

By 1886 Eastwood & Company Ltd had taken over the Lower Halstow works and presided over the next 75 years of brick manufacturing before being taken over in 1963 by Redland Bricks Ltd. By then, the traditional brickmaking techniques and production methods were being challenged by more modern, efficient and mechanised processes and inevitably the Halstow brick-works was forced to close on Saturday 3rd September 1966 - it seems, perhaps, that Eastwood & Company Ltd had rather fortuitously ‘seen the writing on the wall’. This abrupt and sudden closure devasted the village and from here on, Lower Halstow become a village inhabited essentially by commuters.

 

One last powerful remnant of this bygone time remains in the form of the Wharf, without which, there would have been no brickmaking or barge-building industries in Lower Halstow and consequently no transformation of the village. 

After the brickworks closed in 1966, many of the buildings subsequently collapsed or were dismantled and the site became an overgrown industrial wasteland. The barges moved elsewhere or were broken up or sunk to form breakwater sea defences with the wharf becoming used only by occasional smaller leisure craft. The site then morphed over the years into a giant adventure playground for the children of the village, but unfortunately it was a very dangerous one indeed.

In 1980, the whole of the brickmaking site was purchased by local builder Dennis Ward, for redevelopment. Planning approval for a housing development was granted in 1981 and a total of 78 houses were built between 1983 and 1986, rejuvenating the village and supporting the building of a new Primary School. However, only a third of the brickfields site was developed, with all of the remaining land, including the wharf being gifted to the Parish Council for amenity purposes.

Much of this area is low-lying and with its naturally regenerated vegetation, including reedbeds and semi-aquatic habitat it quickly became a haven for estuary wildlife. The Brickfields site was notified as a Site of Nature Conservation Interest in 1993 and consists of a variety of habitats, supporting numerous plant and animal species. A ‘light touch’ management regime is provided by the community volunteer group, ‘the Friends of the Brickfields’ and the area has thrived with wildlife, as well as an amenity and passive recreational area for both local residents and visitors.

The Wharf, in comparison, has not enjoyed the same level of attention and steadily declined over the years. It has now been sympathetically restored, thanks to a Heritage Grant from Swale Borough Council. It is now available for berthing and is the long term home of the Edith May Thames Sailing Barge.

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