Monument record HXN 031 - Banham's brickworks

Complex of brick works/kilns & drying sheds etc. One of few surviving examples in county. For details see Suffolk Industrial Archaeological Society records (S1).
Operated by Charles Robinson 1883-88; Hoxne Brickworks Co 1912; Banham & Son 1925-37. Drain pipe manufacture continued until 1965 (S2). For layout see modern & 1904 & 1884 1:2500 maps.
C18 brickearth digging revealed Pal site - see HXN 002.

2012 Design, Access and Heritage Statement: Ordnance Survey maps of 1886-1927 indicate that the kiln was originally located within a range of buildings, aligned north-south, to the east of the drying shed. A later 20th century store building partly lies over the site of this range. The form of the earlier kiln was rectangular in plan. The OS maps show the drying shed and, to the south-east, two other buildings, now demolished with brick extraction pits further to the south. The machine shed to the west is not depicted suggesting that it was erected post 1927. A second, larger late 20th century storage building has been erected to the east of the drying shed. The drying shed damaged by fire in the 1960s, has been partially reconstructed and extended to the east. The machine shed to the west has been modified in the late 20th century but contained a brick maker and clay extruder for drainage pipe making, powered by a Fielding and Platt diesel engine 1929. Since the 1960s the site has had a variety of uses including a concrete crushing plant and storage. There are three buildings on site which pertain to brick and drainage pipe manufacture; the kiln and its associated chimney mid 20th century date, the drying shed late 19th century remodelled in the 20th century and the machine shed c.1930 remodelled in the later 20th century (S4).

2016 Historic Building Recording: The old pipeworks lies in open countryside approximately 750 m south-west of Hoxne village on the eastern side of Eye Road. The site is internationally famous for the discovery by antiquarian John Frere of paleolithic tools during clay extraction in 1797, when the site operated as the brickworks of the Hoxne Hall estate (later renamed Oakley Park). An estate map of 1757 suggests that any earlier brick making occurred well to the north of the present buildings, which date from the 1930s and later. Of the structures shown on the Ordnance Survey of 1927 only fragments of a 19th century brick shed still stand today and the adjoining kiln has been replaced by a large cement-block vehicle shed. The surviving complex was built in the 1930s and underwent many alterations before the production of bricks and land drainage pipes ceased in the mid 1960s. A small down-draught beehive kiln of 8 m in total diameter with a detached chimney is the best preserved structure on the site, retaining its eight fire holes and some of its cast iron equipment including dampers, grates and ash-pit doors. It is shown in operation in a photograph of 1954 and may have replaced the previous kiln in response to wartime air raid regulations like many similar examples elsewhere. A series of brick and corrugated iron machinery sheds which contained extrusion equipment and a diesel engine had been emptied prior to inspection, leaving only a drum sieve in situ together with a small number of wooden brick moulds. The extrusion machinery is understood to have been acquired by a local collector. A long drying shed was re-roofed after a fire which left its timber posts and tie-beams badly charred, and was largely rebuilt in brick when a hot air drying tunnel was inserted. Despite these alterations the shed retains good mid- 20th century industrial archaeology in the form of three pairs of iron rail tracks for transporting the drying racks, a track switching trolley, a hand winch and a hot air blower linked to the kiln. Two drying racks with bogey wheels also survive, along with a hand trolley depicted in the 1954 photograph and the base of a pugmill. The buildings are therefore of great local interest but are not of sufficient age, rarity or completeness to be considered of national importance (S3).