Claybank Brick Plant Nat'l Historic Site

This journal features the self-guided tour that Beth & I made of the Claybank Brick Plant - “The Little Brick Plant in the Middle of Nowhere”. This unique site, now a National Historic Site, is the only intact complex of its type & era left in Canada, & is considered North America's best preserved brick-making site.

The plant remains frozen in time - little has changed from the day it opened in 1914. The 10 original beehive kilns are still here, & 90% of the original equipment & buildings are ... (more)

The entrance
The plant site, nestled at the foot of the Dirt Hills, is located...

Historic plaque
The plant opened in 1914. Please see introductory text for a more complete...

The Visitor Center
was once the bunk house. It was constructed in the early 1920's &...

The bunkhouse
is now the visitor center. In later years, the bunk house was occupied...

The antique organ
in the visitor center.

The brick oven
The visitor center lunch counter makes hot cinnamon buns every day. Two Asian...

Vegas, the friendly yard dog
was our companion throughout our self-guided tour. It was a hot day,...

The office building on the left
& lab building on the right. (Note Vegas lying in the shade.) This office...

Lab buildings
The Lab was built in 1920 to analyze clay & test new brick products. The...

Boiler house
The last plant owners were A.P. Green Refactories, a multi-national...

Carpenter shop
The wooden molds for hand-molded bricks were made in this shop. These...

Filter/pump house, I think
with the visitor center in the background.

This narrow-gauge train car is now used
for tourists. Note one of the staff houses in the background.

Clay storage shed
The plant used Dirt Hills clay mined on site for most of their...

Closeup
When clay was discovered here in 1886, the assay report from eastern...

different angle....
The dry pan area was here as well.

Clay stock piles
In the early days, the clay was dug out with pick & shovel, then...

Clay dump car
that ran on rails. When the plant expanded & added more kilns,...

The Fordson tractor
The Fordson would speed downhill on the rail line coming out of the pits with...

Bucket elevator
Since the clay stored in the clay storage shed was usually in large...

Bucket monorail
Dobie brick (previously fired brick) was added to the clay mixture to help...

There are posters like this
in every area, so self-guided tours are quite easy to manage. They...

Dry pan grinder

Bagging station
Ground fire clay was also bagged for sale at various bagging stations in the...

Dry pan poster

Pug mill
was used to mix clay with water for hand-molding.

One of the brick presses
I think this might be the AB press? After the clay was ground &...

Pressed bricks drying on brick carts

The X Press was special
as it produced the brick that lined the boilers of the Corvette &...

Hand molding
The hand mold method was used to make bricks with unusual shapes or...

Hand mold forms
The excess clay was cut from the surface of the mold with a wire bow,...

Hand mold shop & dry pan area
During the 1960s, a bumping stand was designed & installed which...

Transfer tracks & carts
The pressed or hand-made bricks (green bricks) were placed on carts &...

Poster
The recycled heat in the drying tunnels is transferred from the kilns via a...

Drying tunnels
There are 12 drying tunnels in 2 groups of 6. Each of the tunnels held...

The kilns
This is the most interesting process, too long to describe here....

The plant had 10 down-draft
beehive kilns for firing the green bricks, the last step in the brick-making...

Note the variety of brick colors.
Because of the chemical reaction during the firing process, the color of...

An overgrown kiln

The inside of a kiln
Note the portable track. It was removed during the firing process or it would...

Coal fired kiln with parabolic arch
entrance that was bricked in for firing.

Brick stock sheds
When the fired bricks were cool enough to handle, they were loaded into wheel...

Closer
In the early days, the bricks that were loaded into box cars were packed with...

The stock shed chimney
is recycled oil cans.

The proverbial "brick shit house" ? LOL

Bricks of various colors
The bricks produced here were mainly refractory brick (able to withstand high...

They also produced tiles

The last active page of the calendar
before the plant closed is still hanging on the wall. When the plant...

The punch clock

They thought they were coming back...

In the change room

Photo of Clarke residence in Avonlea
These last photos show 4 other historical properties in the area. These were...

Blue Hills United Church
We tried to find this church but it was out of the way.

Dietrich barn
I would have loved to have found this barn.

Purdy farm house
We found this one. I will have photos in another journal.

article published 9/5/2008

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thanks Lorraine for sharing the fascinating history and photos with us!
— Ben Hsu, October 7, 2008

Good Heavens, Rainy,
I never cease to be amazed at the way you can take what would appear on the surface to be a very prosaic subject and make it truly fascinating! You've done it again ... thanks.
— Fred Perry, September 7, 2008

yes
rainy...good shooting again,,yes we had quite a number of these around melblourne dateing back to the early 1900's...but new technology made them redundant and most have now gone but one is stiil alive but needs repair in box hill and a few of the chimnies have neen retained elsewhere..good to see your s brought back some past memories ...wont go into that here ..but it was all good ,,bye now harry..australia
— harrywho, September 6, 2008

WE have Medalta pottery historic site and the IXL brick plant historic site so I will have to check them out and see how similar or dissimilar they are from this one. Interesting.
— Lois, September 5, 2008