Marston Vale is an area of

Bedfordshire Bedfordshire (; abbreviated ''Beds'') is a Ceremonial County, ceremonial county in the East of England. It is bordered by Northamptonshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Hertfordshire to the south and the south-east, and Buckin ...

. It lies to the south west of

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population was 106,940. Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire and seat of the Borough of Bedford local government district. Bedford was founded at a ford (crossin ...

and

Kempston Kempston is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Bedford, Bedfordshire, England, situated around south-west of Bedford town centre. It had a population of 19,330 in the 2011 census, and forms part of the wider Bedford built-up area. The ...

, near Junction 13 of the

M1 motorway The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) motorway, A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the count ...

. Historically it was one of the main

brickmaking A brick is a type of construction material used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a unit primarily composed of clay. But is now also used informally to denote building un ...

districts in England, home of the

London Brick Company The London Brick Company, owned by Forterra plc, is a leading United Kingdom, British manufacturer of bricks. History The London Brick Company owes its origins to John Cathles Hill, a developer-architect who built houses in London and Peterbo ...

, now a division of Hanson plc. The brickmaking activity left scars across the landscape of the Marston Vale as large tracts of land were dug for clay. Most of the claypits are now exhausted, and most of the brickmaking chimneys have been demolished. The legacy of the abandoned brickworks also adds to the impression that the Marston Vale has been despoiled by decades of industrial activity and it is now searching for a new identity. In more recent years the local authorities have taken the opportunity to reuse the clay pits for

landfill A landfill is a site for the disposal of waste materials. It is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of waste with daily, intermediate and final covers only began in the 1940s. In the past, waste was ...

s at Stewartby and Brogborough, both of which are recently capped and closed down.

Forest of Marston Vale

The aesthetic and environmental condition of the Vale is being restored by a community forest project called the Forest of Marston Vale.

Settlements

Villages in Marston Vale include

Stewartby Stewartby is a model village and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, originally built for the workers of the London Brick Company. The village was designed and built to the plans of the company's architect Mr F W W ...

, Kempston Hardwick, Houghton Conquest, Marston Moretaine, Lidlington, Brogborough, Ridgmont and Wootton, and in 2007 construction work began on the new town of Wixams. Wootton Pillinge was renamed Stewartby in 1937 in recognition of the Stewart family who had been instrumental in developing the brickworks.

Brick making

At the height of the industry’s production there were 162 brick chimneys in the Marston Vale. In the 1970s

produced 20% of England’s bricks. Prior to closure, production totalled 135 million bricks a year. In Feb 2008, Hanson closed brickmaking operations at Stewartby owing to problems meeting UK sulphur emission regulations, even though it met the EU regulations. In 2008, the 2 surviving Hoffman kilns (CK1 and CK3) and 4 chimneys at the brickworks were given Grade 2 listed status. British Listed Buildings
/ref> The factories used

Oxford Clay The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specific ...

, which is made up of 5% seaweed, formed 150 million years ago when it was on the sea bed. This reduced the amount of coal needed to fire the

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or Chemical Changes, chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects m ...

s, as the organic material burned.

Transport

Rail transport in the district is served by the Marston Vale Line. The primary road through the area is the A421.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Marston Vale

Forest of Marston Vale
Valleys of Bedfordshire Eco-towns

Vale A vale is a type of valley. Vale may also refer to: Places Georgia * Vale, Georgia, a town in the Samtskhe-Javakheti region Norway * Våle, a historic municipality Portugal * Vale (Santa Maria da Feira), a former civil parish in the municip ...