This clay head– a gift to worker Harold Bevis –was made from brick clay here and handed to him by his colleagues.

Working at the Brickworks was manually intensive and intrinsically difficult. The employees here would work in ‘gangs’. For example, the ‘clay gang’ would dig the clay, the ‘machine gang’ would move the bricks from the machinery to the drying sheds, and finally the ‘kiln gang’ were responsible for placing the bricks into the kiln ready to be fired. As you can imagine, each gang would get used to one another’s working patterns and speeds and would consequently grow quite close to one another during their shifts. This clay head of Mr Bevis serves as a nice reminder of the strong relationships formed here at Bursledon Brickworks.

The piece itself dates from around 1972 – just two years before the eventual closure of Bursledon Brickworks in 1974. Its closure was largely a result of the building of the M27 and the passing of the Health and Safety at Work act of 1974 which saw the brickworks unable economically to upgrade its now out-dated equipment, thus forcing it to shut down entirely. However, lots of work has been done and continues to be done to preserve what was left of the site. Being volunteer-run, the Brickworks greatly appreciates any donations to help keep the museum going and to help look after this wonderful bit of local and national history.

This blog was written by Museum Volunteer Molly Hunter.