The River Nevern must have carried and dropped this weighty item into the estuarial mud and its origins are clear to anyone willing to stop and read.

The Goodwick brickworks, established in 1908 just a year after the arrival of the Great Western railway, produced bricks from the local blue shale and clay until 1969. Throughout the 60 years of its existence, the production  processes were refined and improved and in the 1920s this brickworks provided the building materials for the expansion of Milford. In its heyday the brickworks employed 40 men and produced 120,000 bricks a week.

This very long wall of original design in Newport looks as if it might have made good use of the bricks that didn’t turn out well enough to be sold.

There were labour shortages after the war however and, by the late 1960, 30 employees produced just 60,000 bricks a week. Demand fell and competition from larger producers eventually destroyed the business. The brickyards were demolished in just one week and shortly afterwards the Frenchman’s Motel was built on part of the site.

The quarry that produced the blue shale and clay is now broadleaved woodland. Horseshoe bats nest in the vicinity and the restricted access to the site, through a single-track very low railway bridge, will probably protect the site from further development.