Page 9 - HB- Ferny Hill Brick Works

Ferny Hill Brick Works Redditch Heritage

"My brother was five years older than I was, then I had a half-sister who was ten years
older. Although I was only a toddler, I used to help to load the lorries. My brother used
to put me on top of the lorry, he would pass the bricks up to me and I used to move
them around. In those days they used to put a flat layer of bricks on the back of the
lorry, the next layer would be one brick in and so on until the stack went up several
bricks high and was like a pyramid. Sometimes my dad used to go mad because we
would go and load bricks without him knowing and he was worried in case we got hurt.

"The brick yard was our playground, the cranes were our toys and we climbed all over
them. We used to play in the kilns, they were huge and there was a whole row of them,
with little of open arches. The rats used to sleep in the kilns for warmth at night. Dad
doorways - rows of open arches. The rats used to sleep in the kilns for warmth at night.
Dad used to have garden gun (that's its proper name) and shoot them because he was
scared of the rats biting his children. We had the whole run of the area, Musketts Wood
was next to the quarry and it was like our back garden.

Ariel view of Ferny Hill Brick works showing Bromsgrove Road in the foreground with new
houses being build. Were the bricks local?

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