Norman Dunn's 'Hebburn and our Neighbours Forum'

Norman Dunn's 'Hebburn and our Neighbours Forum'
[ Norman Dunn's 'Hebburn and our Neighbours Forum' ]

Rules! No Bad language or derogatory remarks Please or we will delete. Anyone sharing our content on Face Book must credit 'Hebburn and our Neighbours'.

Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by David Henley on 26/3/2026, 8:55 pm

My point is simple. There is a big quarry that is now operating ,just coming off 194 into Mill Lane. Do people remember seeing this sited in local press or else wise. And it seems there is another being prepared other side of the cocktail crow pub.
Has anybody saw public notices of this?
This seems to go back to 70/80s ?.
Norman have you got info on this?

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by Norman on 26/3/2026, 10:29 pm, in reply to "Quarries mill Lane hebburn"

Hi David.
All that land from Mill Lane to Wardley area has been used to get clay for making house bricks for many many years.
In the early 1900s there was a Jones's Brickworks there.
Nowadays I think the clay is taken away to be made into bricks at a brickworks in the Newcastle area.Im not on my computer but have some photos of the quarries I can show tomorrow if you wish.
Norman

k

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by Joseph on 27/3/2026, 8:05 am, in reply to "Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn"

Remember talking to a foreman in the same aria years ago and he was saying the clay is the most valuable clay for some reason, don't know if there still digging it out but love to know just what's going on up there.

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by Norman Dunn on 27/3/2026, 9:30 am, in reply to "Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn"
Edited by board administrator 27/3/2026, 10:02 am

Our Tyneside area has a 8ft thick seam of 'blue clay' a foot or two under the surface hence why we had brickyards dotted all over the area.There was another type called Fire Clay 5ft thick but that was about 40ft below the surface.Cambrian Blue Clay is the rarest and most ancient of all clays with deposits beginning in the earliest Paleozoic period of our history, about 542 million years ago. (I googled all this)
Here is a water filled quarry close to Mill Lane & St Josephs school 1960.The white 'Mill Tavern' can be seen on Mill Lane.

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by Joseph on 27/3/2026, 9:48 am, in reply to "Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn"

Ps. Used to swim in that quarry (young and daft).

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by David henley on 27/3/2026, 11:18 am, in reply to "Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn"

My query is did it get advertised locally, as getting opened up again? It just seemed to start working it again without any formal notices.
I remember swimming it as a kid.
I live nearby and drive the road but never heard any thing about it reopening.
The volume of traffic on road is now very much more than previously.

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by AJG on 27/3/2026, 9:39 pm, in reply to "Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn"

I remember exploring this quarry when I was young. Amazing that it was so close to St. Joseph's school!

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn

Posted by Ian Turnbull on 27/3/2026, 12:20 pm, in reply to "Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn"

They have a lease for another Thirty odd years after which it will be a neture reserve. It was in the news a while ago..

Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn ( clay )

Posted by Stan Wears on 31/3/2026, 2:07 pm, in reply to "Re: Quarries mill Lane hebburn"

The most common clay is Etruria Marl and Hebburn is full of it. Jones supplied a lot of the bricks to build the quay area. It was originally Jones and Maxwell opened in 1895 but around 1910 circa became Jones brothers. It made 44,000 bricks per day. It was also known as Pelaw Terracotta works. I found a number of Jones bricks in the Baltic Mill during the demolition and when we tried to get a match, we had to go all over the UK....

« Back to index

[ Norman Dunn's 'Hebburn and our Neighbours Forum' ]

Rules! No bad language or derogatory remarks or we will delete. Anyone sharing our content on Face Book must credit 'Hebburn and our Neighbours'.