THE COPROLITE INDUSTRY IN GREAT BRICKHILL, BUCKS.
In the late 19th
century an unusual and short-lived industry started in the Brickhill area that
brought wealth to landowners and employment to many local men. In 1873, a
visiting geologist from
The deposit was reported as being found scattered through about 30 feet
(10.5m.) of sand, but more abundantly in its lower layers. They overlay the
upper beds of the Oxford Clay. He took them to be “coprolites” of a similar
nature to those being worked at Potton in Bedfordshire. Coprolite, in its true
sense, means fossilised droppings, from the Greek “kopros“ meaning dung and
“lithos“ meaning stone. Many geologists disputed the coprolitic nature of the
deposit and prefered to call them nodules but the term “coprolite“ was widely
used across the Eastern Counties as a trade name. (1)
Mr Teall's paper on the find and its comparison with the Potton coprolite
beds won an important prize from Professor Sedgwick of
Subsequent evidence shows that Messrs. Morris and
News about the discovery spread and a fellow geologist, Walter Keeping,
shed further light on the workings. His paper in the Quarterly Journal of
Geological Science commented that
“In a traverse through part
of Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire last vacation, with the object of tracing
the extent of the
The workings are seen on a
hill near Gt. Brickhill, which is about three miles from Bletchley Junction,
and the section exposed is about 30 feet deep. The deposit is a rather coarse
sand. Unlike any workings known to me, there is no seam here, but the
phosphatic nodules are scattered through the entire thickness of the section ,
and they are separated by sifting the whole of the thirty feet of sands,
excepting where they are too much hardened by cementing substances. Thus
separated, the coprolites are washed in revolving perforated cylinders, and any
pebbles of quartz, chert, lydian stone etc are picked out when the material is
ready for grinding. The whole process is the same as that carried on at Potton
and Upware’
. (4)
The process of extracting and washing them is examined later. He reported
phosphatised remains of saurians. Which species is not known but five dinosaurs
were found in the coprolites in the Greensand. They included iguanodon,
megalosaurus, craterosaurus, stegosaurus and dinotosaurus. There were fossil
remains of ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus and pliosaurus, marine reptiles which
swam in the seas in this area about 100 or so million years ago. Fossils of
fishes, worn casts of ammonites and other mollusca were uncovered. Undoubtedly
many of the best examples found their way into local museums and private
collections. The coprolites had been thought to be fossilised dinosaur
droppings but Keeping suggested
“the mineralisation of the fossils was due to decomposing matter, the
carbonate of lime being replaced by phospate of lime; and even wood was thus
mineralised, as well as bones and nodules of limestone. The nodules which are
dark brown or yellow, yield from 30% to 50% of phosphate of lime. In the Gault,
other bands of phosphatic nodules occur, generally black in appearance, but
usually pale grey or buff in the interior.” (5)
A photograph in the Record
Office shows a number of men and boys standing in a terraced pit in Great
Brickhill. One can see the tools of the trade, picks, shovels and spades. (6)
Ladders and plankways were also in evidence as well as two carts led by a horse
on a tramway. Permission had been given to lay a tramway from the pits down the
slope to Stoke Hammond Meadow, adjacent to the
The actual works where the coprolites were washed and sorted were down by
the tow path side of the Canal, adjacent to a landing stage just south of
Bridge 99. This was on Mr Goodsman's land rather than at Mr Duncombe’s existing
wharves just upstream. Being closer it would have incurred less transport
costs. (9) Although their lease was to expire in 1881 there is evidence that
Morris and
Whilst the exact numbers of those employed during the 1870s has not been
discovered, the photograph showed twenty three men and boys. Several sources
have revealed some extra details of those involved. According to the 1881
census there was no-one described as involved in Great or Little Brickhill. Had
the work ceased in April when the census was taken and the labourers gone back
to agricultural work? Could those described as simply “labourers“ have been involved
or were the many “agricultural labourers“ taken on by the farmer during the
winter months and then went back to other work as the weather improved? The
latter years of the 1870s were dominated by heavy rains and poor harvests. The
rains would have incurred greater labour costs and the government of the day
having introduced the Free Trade Act had allowed vast quantities of cheap meat
and grain from the Prairies in the
Adding to the problem for the coprolite industry was the discovery in the
mid-1870s of a vast deposit of rock phosphate in
Thirty year old Martin Chew
of Stoke Hammond was the “Engine driver“ at
what the enumerator included as “at the
Copperlite works”. This may well have been local dialect or a spelling
error. (10) The parish registers have shown that several leading figures had
their children baptised in the local church. Joseph Eversden, of Little
Brickhill, registered two children, the first in May 1882 when he was described
as “Foreman of Coprolite Works’ and
again in July 1884 when he was “Overseer
of Coprolite Works.’ (11)
When the historian, Ivan
O’Dell’s article, “A Vanished Industry’ appeared in the Bedforshire Magazine in
1950 it elicited several responses, one of which gave the account of two local
coprolite diggers. It described how, in the late 1880’s, they
‘...were farm labourers at
Another report in the Bletchley Gazette told of Jim Scott of Brickhill.
Born in 1870 to a platelayer on the railway, he was engaged in the diggings in
the mid-1880s and was
‘...employed as a young man
sorting coprolite nuggets mined from Brickhills... [it was] washed and sorted
at a works operating on Water Eaton side of Stoke House... Mr Scott recalls
that it was possible to get fingers of crystal so sharp that they could cut
glass and that highly coloured pieces met a ready sale to visiting gentlemen.’ (13)
By the winter of 1888 the company’s seven-year lease had finished. They
were preparing a move out of Wolverhampton to expand in
COMPLETION OF CONTRACT
GREAT BRICKHILL & WATER EATON
About One-and-a-half Miles
from Bletchley and Fenny
˜To Engineers, Contractors,
Builders, Farmers, and Others.
MESSRS. CUMBERLAND and HOPKINS Have received
instructions from Mr. H. Wilkerson TO SELL BY AUCTION IN NOVEMBER
T H E P L A N T, Which has
been in use at the Coprolite Works on the Great Brickhill Estate; CONSISTING of
a 6-horse portable steam engine, by Marshall, in good working order; a centrifugal
pump, by Gwyne, with India rubber hose, a force pump, a 22-feet iron water
wheel, a nearly-new stone washing cylinder, with tank, a weigh-bridge by Avery,
a quantity of 4-inch piping, about 4,000 sleepers, about two miles of iron
rails (16lb. and 40lb. to a yard), six tip wagons, a windlass, with frame,
double brakes, and about 400 yards of wire rope; a quantity of wheelbarrows,
planks, leather straps, etc. also the PORTABLE BUILDINGS, comprising three
work-shops, three stables, a mess room, two offices, engine shed and two
others, and post and rail fencing. This valuable plant is being sold in
consequence of the completion of the contract, and it will be moved to
convenient places for the purpose of sale.
May be viewed at any time, on application to the Foreman, and Catalogue
had at the usual Inns, and of the Auctioneers, High Street, Leighton Buzzard.” (14)
How successful he was in
selling the plant, given the industry's demise, has not been recorded. There is
some indication that, whilst the contract may well have expired, the seam had
not been exhausted. In the April of 1889 the parish register shows that William
Meacher of Great Brickhill had a son baptised and he was described as “Foreman of Coprolite.’ (15) Whilst this
could indicate there were other works in the parish, he could have taken over
from Mr Eversden. The electoral list the same year included Henry Wilkerson as
still renting the coprolite works in Stoke Hammond. Maybe he was still paying
rent for the field whilst the works were still erected but he was not included
the following year. (16)
By the end of the 1880s Morris and
During the First World War when foreign supplies were threatened by
blockades by the German Navy an investigation was made into the possibility of
reworking the local phosphate supplies but there was no indication this area
was considered. When this happened again during the Second War, a team under a
Mr. Oakley, produced a detailed report of all the nation’s potential phosphate
deposits which included Brickhill.
“The Brickhill deposits outcrop
within 1 mile of the
Large workings half a mile N.
N. W. of
His report suggested that much of the deposit around Brickhill remained
to be worked, but the yield of nodules was probably too small in relation to
the quantity of sand to be removed, and therefore discounted as too uneconomic.
(18)
What was an unusual but small scale, labour intensive industry has been given
little coverage in the local history books and this work has helped keep alive
the memory of those local men and boys who worked the pits. What was done with
the coprolite revenues is not known but many landowners renovated their
estates, had cottages built and otherwise lived better. The higher wages of the
diggers would have provided a stimulus to the local economy. Local businesses
would have profited and the public houses undoubtedly got good trade. Carters
and bargees would have seen an increase in trade but the decline of the
industry helps explain the population loss of the parishes at the end of the
century.
References
1.Teall, J. W. ‘The Neocomian Deposits of Potton and Upware,’ Sedgewick
Prize Essay,
2. Document in possession of Lady Evelyn Duncomb, Brickhill Manor; Bucks.
R.O. Ashridge Estate Papers P15/49
3. O’Connor, B. (1990) ‘The History of the Coprolite Industry in Buckinghamshire’,
Topic, (Magazine of the Friends of Dunstable Museum) Vol.11, pp.9-21; O’Connor,
B. (1990) ‘The Coprolite Industry in Buckinghamshire’, Bucks. Records, vol.32,
pp.76-90
4. Keeping, Walter ‘On the Occurrence of Neocomian Sands with Phosphatic Nodules
at Brickhill, Beds.’ Q.J.G.S. 1875, pp.372-5
5. O’Dell, I. original ms. ’A Vanished Industry,’
6. Photograph owned by Mr. Arthur Bates,
7.Document in possession of Lady Evelyn Duncomb, Brickhill Manor
8. Communication with H. Allen, Stoke House, Stoke Hammond; Aerial
photograph 1983, used by Bucks. C.C. for Fenny Stratford by-pass.
9. Stoke Bruerne Archives, Engineers Log,1897
10. 1881 census Stoke
11. Great and Little Brickhill Parish Registers, 1882-4
12. Whiting, W. ‘A Vanished Industry,’ Beds. Mag. iv. p.86
13. Bletchley Gazette, 29th July 1950
14. N.Bucks Times &
15. Electoral Register Buckinghamshire; Author's communication with H.
Allen, Stoke House, Stoke Hammond
16. Great and Litle Brickhill Parish Registers, 1889
17. Oakley,K. op.cit. 1941.
21. Ibid; Strahan, A. ‘Potash-Felspar,Phosphate of Lime etc.’
Mem.Geol.Surv. Mineral Resources,vol.v.1917 p22; O.S. 6 inch Bucks. 20NE.
(1895-6); Lamplugh,G.W. & Walker, J.F. ‘A Lower Greensand Fossiliferous
Band’, 1903, p.234; Kelly’s Directory of Bucks., 1895,p.9, 1924,p.16, Towersey,
Ford and Brickhill.