[tristanjay]

Had a great day here, its a proper little sun trap and out the wind. Loads to climb over and rummage round, I tried looking for stamped brick but they are thin on the ground, saw one from the high harbour as the tide was coming in, a flimsy excuse to go back again at low tide. I do reccomend this one if your in the area. Lots of Cast wheels and bits and bobs along the imediate shoreline also.

The works as you see it today is not as it was in the late 19th Century. Most of the existing site was constructed at the turn of the 20th Century and evolved from there onwards according to refinement of the techniques for making the bricks. Mining by manual endeavor lasted from around 1850 to 1914, even though the Porth Wen brick works was taken over by a German named Herr Steibel in 1906. Now Herr Steibel would never have undertaken the management of the works unless he believed there would be a profitable return for his endeavours. Poor Misguided Fool. Herr Steibel’s tenure only lasted until 1908 when a Charles Tidy took over. Progress in manufacture revealed itself in how the individual bricks were made. Unlike Herr Steibel, who had continued with the traditional moulding and wire cutting into shape, Mr. Tidy used a simple shape pressing technique that cut out a time-consuming and therefore expensive stage of production. However, because of technical – or was it personality issues, as alleged elsewhere - the quality of the final product declined markedly and the work at Porth Wen came to an end in 1914. The beginning of the First World war should have been a profitable time serving the wartime steel industry; nonetheless, it failed. The brickworks remained unused until 1924. Production struggled on until 1949 when they finally gave up the ghost.

from - http://www.anglesey-hidden-gem.com/p...ick-works.html























TJ