Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/91

38 was necessary to provide for drying the bricks, as they were made, under cover, and we commenced the arrangement of the brickyard and the erection of the brick-drying shed on the 23rd February.

A plan is given showing the state of the brickyard and the houses that had been built at the end of 1880.

The bricks that were made from the marsh clay, with a small addition of sandy marl, proved to be of excellent quality, and the buildings, after six years, are as perfect as when first erected.

When the shaft at 5 mile 4 chains was sunk through the conglomerate, just above the level of the springing of the arch of the tunnel, I noticed that the material which was raised from the shaft was very similar to that used in the Cattybrook Brick-yard for making the vitrified bricks. It at once struck me that the heading into which the water had broken between Sudbrook and 5 miles 4 chains must be wholly in this fire-clay shale.

This was stoutly denied by the men who had been employed upon the works, but it proved to be the case, and I determined at once to endeavour to make a considerable quantity of vitrified bricks from this fire-clay shale upon the ground. This led to a large increase of the brick-making plant, and finally to the erection of eight Staffordshire kilns, with a drying-shed 100 feet by 150 feet, and a very heavy crushing-mill (similar to those used in Staffordshire