Brick-pits of Leicestershire

Leicester City once had thriving extractive industries within its limits, but these have changed over the years as workings have developed more within the surrounding county. The extractive industries were the quarrying of clay for brick-making, gypsum for plaster, sand and sandstone for building, as well as limestone quarries worked for lime, building stone and the manufacture of mortar. Few traces of these are visible today. The brick industry is therefore only one of many that worked the ground in the city and county. Surveys of Leicester’s industries for the British Association meetings of 1907, 1933 and 1968 (which were held in Leicester) make little mention of brick making, but there are records of much earlier production (McWhirr, 1997).