Accrington bricks, or Nori,
are a type of iron-hard
engineering brick, produced in
Altham near
Accrington
Accrington is a town in the Hyndburn borough of Lancashire, England. It lies about east of Blackburn, west of Burnley, east of Preston, north of Manchester and is situated on the culverted River Hyndburn. Commonly abbreviated by locals to ...
,
Lancashire
Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...
, England from 1887 to 2008 and again from 2015.
They were famed for their strength, and were used for the foundations of the
Blackpool Tower
Blackpool Tower is a tourist attraction in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which was opened to the public on 14 May 1894. When it opened, Blackpool Tower was the tallest man-made structure in the British Empire. Inspired by the Eiffel Tower in P ...
and the
Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...
.
Name
Three theories have been proposed for the name "Nori":
*Iron was written on the chimney of the brickworks, but backwards with the I at the bottom
*The letters IRON were accidentally placed backwards in the brick moulds thus spelling NORI. This is by far the most common story.
*It was a deliberate decision of the owners to differentiate them from the REDAC brick works in
Huncoat
Huncoat is a village in Lancashire, England; situated in the North West England, North West. It is located to the east of Accrington. It is a ward of Hyndburn where the population taken at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 4,418.
...
, standing for Accrington Red.
Geology
Fireclay is often found close to coal seams and the Accrington area had many collieries. At the end of the Ice Age, the
River Calder was blocked and formed a large lake in the Accrington area. The sediment from this lake produced the fireclay seams and local coal was available to fire it.
History
The Nori was first produced at a brickworks adjacent to the quarry at Whinney Hill, Altham, by the Accrington Brick and Tile Company Ltd. The clay there produced bricks of the highest strength and hardness. These bricks were acid resistant, so could be used for the lining of flues and chimneys.
There were four brickyards, producing engineering bricks (Enfields, Whinney Hills) and specials. Specials were hand thrown into
plaster of Paris
Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...
moulds. They could be extremely decorative. These bricks were used for specialised engineering projects such as in furnaces and for power stations.
[
The site had its own mineral railway connecting with the East Lancashire Line at Huncoat Station, and was close to the ]Leeds and Liverpool Canal
The Leeds and Liverpool Canal is a canal in Northern England, linking the cities of Leeds and Liverpool.
Over a distance of , crossing the Pennines, and including 91 locks on the main line. The Leeds and Liverpool Canal has several small branc ...
.
The brickworks once managed by Marshall Clay Products were bought out by Heidelberg Materials UK, a subsidiary of the multi-national HeidelbergCement group, in 2005. The brickworks was closed in 2008, with the loss of 83 jobs. Hanson, who said they were mothballing the factory, cited the recession and standstill in new house builds. The Accrington Nori Brick works was temporarily re-opened in August 2009 only to close again that November, after a lifespan of 122 years. In 2013 the works was for sale.[ Since 1982 the old quarries have been increasingly used for landfill of domestic waste from the north west region operated by the company SITA UK. In 2013 local residents began legal action against SITA over claims of foul smells coming from the site.]
Following an upturn in new house starts Hanson reopened its Claughton Manor plant, near Lancaster, in 2014. This is the first ever example of "de-mothballing" a brickworks. Additional shifts were added at Kirton, Desford and Wilnecote. In May 2014 it was decided to reopen the Accrington factory.
The restart was to be carried out in two stages: the first phase costing £1.4 million started production in January 2015 with the second phase, requiring further investment of around £350,000, due to follow later in 2015. Hanson say the factory has the capacity to produce 45 million bricks a year and the adjoining quarry has between 30 and 40 years' clay reserves. In the first week of production the Conservative Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron, Baron Cameron of Chipping Norton (born 9 October 1966) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016. Until 2015, he led the first coalition government in the UK s ...
and his Chancellor of the Exchequer
The chancellor of the exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and the head of HM Treasury, His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, t ...
, George Osborne
George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born 23 May 1971) is a British retired politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the Cameron government. A ...
, chose to visit the factory during their election campaign visit to Lancashire.
Usage
*Blackpool Tower
Blackpool Tower is a tourist attraction in Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which was opened to the public on 14 May 1894. When it opened, Blackpool Tower was the tallest man-made structure in the British Empire. Inspired by the Eiffel Tower in P ...
* Barry Power Station
*Battersea Power Station
Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames in Nine Elms, Battersea in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It was built by the London Power Company (LPC) to the design of ...
*University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...
: original Edgbaston buildings. Its distinctive appearance helped popularise the term red brick university
A redbrick university (or red-brick university) normally refers to one of the nine civic universities originally founded as university colleges in the major industrial cities of England in the second half of the 19th century.
However, wi ...
.
*Empire State Building
The Empire State Building is a 102-story, Art Deco-style supertall skyscraper in the Midtown South neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, United States. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its n ...
* Fiddlers Ferry Power Station
*Sellafield
Sellafield, formerly known as Windscale, is a large multi-function nuclear site close to Seascale on the coast of Cumbria, England. As of August 2022, primary activities are nuclear waste storage, nuclear waste processing and storage and nucle ...
* Thiepval Memorial
* The Haçienda
* The ''Brick Train'' at Darlington
Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. It lies on the River Skerne, west of Middlesbrough and south of Durham. Darlington had a population of 107,800 at the 2021 Census, making it a "large town" ...
References
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Geography of Hyndburn
Brick manufacturers
Building materials companies of the United Kingdom