Filling in The Brickyard Pond.

Much has been said about the Brickyard Pond at the end of Moor Lane and before I can no longer remember the tales from my childhood, I thought you may like a sketch of the notorious pond. As I previously said on a former page, the story goes , it was a good stone quarry that was producing a lot of stone for the area. One day when blasting the stone in the quarry, the blast fractured an underground spring that quickly flooded the quarry. Try as they may to drain the quarry, that old spring just kept on coming, and so it was, the Brickyard Pond was born.

The sketch again is from my memory. The view is as you would see the pond from the Hayfield. The rocks around the top of the pond are the top of the old quarry which stayed there for as long as I can remember.

The allotments were looked after by people who lived in the Brickyard and surrounding houses. The pond being a great supply of water for watering.

Much of the waste land opposite Moor Lane School was covered with ash waste. Shortly after, Maun Industries was built on the waste land.

Moor Lane itself was mostly unmade. Moor Street and Victoria Street can also be seen. There was an embankment leading up to Victoria Street.

All the local firms were encouraged to use the tip to fill in the pond.There are several stories relating to the loss of life that the Brickyard Pond claimed.

Alan Curtis

Comments about this page

  • I enjoyed reading your memory Ann, Appears we have similar memories of the area.

    By Alan Curtis (05/02/2018)
  • Wow this brought back memories ! I can remember the pond and forgot it was called the Hayfield. When I was a child the rag and bone man had his horses there and my friends used to take a bucket to collect manure for my grandads and others roses. Later I remember it being a landfill where we used to collect wood for our bonfires. There was the Brickyard Working Mens Club,and a row of really old houses and a park. The road to the club was unmade and there was no wall only an embankment where in winter we used to sledge right down and over the road onto the park laying back to get under the wire. What fun we had back then dangerous too. Can anyone remember Kathleen Heathcote being attacked and abducted later found in Lady Bower Dam? there was garages and waste land near the landfill where he attacked and items of hers were found there. Everyone’s house and lofts sheds etc were searched in the area.

    By Ann Slack (04/02/2018)

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