Clockhouse Brickworks. Capel, Dorking – Surrey. December 2015

[Norfolk Explorer]

The Xmas holidays made for some free time and the opportunity for me to explore. So I arranged a whole day out with my buddys and Storm LSF who was coming out with us for the 1st time.. So the Alarm goes of at 2:30am and I check the phone and 2 of the party have become lightweights
We arrive at the south coast at 7am and its not good from the start. Fail, fail, and busted by a rather nice security guard. So it is onto our last stop of the day as it is now the afternoon and decided we would try this... With it being busy near the front doors we decided to head round the back and tackle the muddy and waterlogged fields and get in that way..... Once we had squeezed in (due to too much xmas choc I guess) it was time to grab a load of photos and then make a quick exit and get home for more xmas Choccys. And then as we are walking away we hear some shouting from the other side of the water from some folk, could not work out if it was get out of there or how did you get in lol, but we just stomped of into the sunset and headed home ​

History
Pinched from kkj
The Clock House Brick Company Ltd was founded c.1933 to exploit a rich deposit of high-quality Weald Clay to the south of the Surrey village of Capel. Although the outbreak of war in 1939 brought some demand for bricks to help with the war effort, there was apparently little need for the high-grade hollow ceramic blocks which were Clockhouse's main product and conscription meant that there was also a severe shortage of labour. By 1941, the Company was in liquidation and sold the majority of its share capital to the London Brick Company (LBC) to avoid closing the works. In 1945, the Company was wound up for good and the works were acquired by the LBC. Under LBC, production was substantially increased, aided by the 1950s housing boom and in the 1960s the works was rebuilt to cope with ever increasing demand.​

The global financial crisis of 2008 hit the building materials industry hard: a sudden slump in housing prices meant that house-building ground almost to a halt and demand for bricks plummeted. In March 2009, a 'phased closure programme' which began later that month and led to the loss of 61 jobs with indication that there was no intention to re-activate the brickworks or extract clay from the adjacent pits. Since closure, Clockhouse Brickworks has been in limbo, slowly being stripped of anything valuable while a lengthy audit determines the planning conditions surrounding re-use of the site. Plans for an incinerator ('energy from waste facility') on the site, bitterly opposed by local residents, were thrown out by a High Court Judgment in 2009 and the future of the site is now uncertain.​

1

2

3

4

5

6

This is what I wanted to see here
7
35mm

8
85mm

9
17mm

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

 ​

And a few random pics from some place we got busted at during the day. Apparently we set of a PIR/alarm as we walked in​

1

2

 

[Lavino]

Nothing like a early start. Good shot and a fun day out is what it's all about  :-D

 

[wellingtonian]

Good report fella. Liking that a lot 

 

[hamtagger]

That's a wicked set mate, some real belters of images in there, cheers for posting

 

[sentinel]

Always liked this place. The other place is cocking lime works for your info

 

[Pinkman]

That's a nice bunch of pics mate, thanks for sharing. Me, Vixxie & Uprite Ninjer came here on a very cold day in Feb last year after getting busted at Silverlands.

Not my cup of tea, but it was fun all the same  :-D