Wienerberger, the world’s leading provider of wall, roof and landscaping innovations, has received planning permission to extract clay from a new 52 hectare site at Paradise Farm in Newington, which will guarantee the continuity of its London Stock bricks as well as secure the future of the Smeed Dean brickworks in Sittingbourme, Kent.
The extraction will take place at Paradise Farm over a three-month period each year for the next 17 years before the land is returned to agriculture. In order to successfully extract the clay from the site, brick earth will need to be removed from the ground. In line with Wienerberger’s focus on sustainability, the land will then be immediately filled with topsoil that will aid in the site’s instant restoration over the remaining nine months.
The Smeed Dean factory is proud to be the sole remaining factory specialising in the production of traditional yellow bricks. To this day, Smeed Dean continues to use the original method and formula, which has remained unaltered for over 200 years.
Wienerberger, commented: “We’re thrilled to have been granted planning permission at the Paradise Farm site. This progression not only enables us to meet the high demands of the infamous London Stock brick and preserve its future, but it also secures our Smeed Dean brickworks.”
Only last year The London Stock brick, which is well known for its use in Buckingham Palace and The Tower of London, was chosen for the creation of One Tower Bridge in London. Offering 400 luxury apartments and 80,000 sq. ft of retail, leisure and cultural space, this large-scale project fused contemporary design with the capital’s historic style. To ensure uniformity of every brick, half a million facing bricks were delivered using the same batch, with each one fired in the same part of the kiln. With it’s unique combination of local chalk, brick earth, town ash and clinker preserved from the fire gates of Victoria London, the popular brick offers a much paler colour in comparison to the majority of clays, due to the presence of carbonate materials.
