Graham Topping

Graham began the second part of his talk on NORI bricks by reminding us that NORI was the trade name of the Accrington Brick and Tile Company. The shale beds in the Accrington area contain exactly 7% iron making it ideal for brick making, as no additives are needed. In the 17^th Century brick-making was a cottage industry, gradually becoming more industrialised in the 18^th Century, until the 19^th Century saw the growth of brick works using a continuous factory process to feed the massively increased demand. By this date there were 16 brick works in the modern Hyndburn area, including:

Baxenden, next to the present Holland’s Pies factory – a large facility producing up to 800 000 specialist bricks per month.

Hapton

Huncoat producing very orange bricks because of a slight difference in the silica content of the shale

Altham next to the Leeds -Liverpool Canal producing specialist bricks

Enfield making engineering bricks

Higher Antley where the bricks were very pink

Rishton

All the brick works were next to the railway and/or the Leeds Liverpool Canal to facilitate the movement of coal and raw materials into the works and the delivery of finished bricks.

By the early 20^th Century all of the smaller brick works had become part of the Accrington Brick and Tile Company which, between 1910 and 1920, was producing 20 million bricks per month on its Huncoat site. The shale was originally quarried from an area next to the works, but later it was quarried from the slopes of Hameldon Hill and transported down to the works via an aerial ropeway, supported by ‘Blondin’ towers. The brick works closed in the 1970s and the distinctive square chimneys, emblazoned with the NORI signature, were demolished in June 1981. The quarry became a tip for household refuse and was capped off only recently.

Throughout his talk, Graham emphasised that the success of NORI was due not only to the quality of its bricks and its design service, but also to imaginative advertising and undertaking of special projects for publicity e.g. 20 million NORI bricks were used for the foundations of the Empire State Building. All the bricks produced had the company’s name and/or trade name stamped into the ‘frog’, sometimes combined with ‘dots’ that indicated which project the brick was intended for. (Empire State Building bricks had 8 dots.) Changes in this information can be used to ‘date’ the brick. Graham also displayed bricks made to celebrate special occasions, particularly Coronations. Nor was it only bricks. Graham showed slides of non-slip, hard-wearing tiles that NORI produced for the flooring of cotton mills; also chimney pots, architectural features and roof tiles among many other items in his collection.