Victorian Brickworks In Liverpool

[Mosaic]

Driving through Liverpool today I found myself noticing how very badly much of the Victorian brickwork has weathered. So I then found myself wondering if this was due to pollution in the past, or the make / firing of the bricks in question. Which leads to the question I can't find an answer to - where was the source of bricks for late Victorian Liverpool? Were these all anonymous and temporary sites that have since been developed, or was the canal system used to bring in cargoes from deeper in west Lancashire?
As you can tell, the long summer evenings just romp past chez Mosaic, so thank you in advance and all answers gratefully received.

[Buenchico]

There appear to have been far more brickworks east of the Pennines than to the west (with brick collector Henry Holt recording just 35 brickworks in the old county of Lancashire [including in Liverpool itself] but finding over 500 bricks from Yorkshire). I suspect that the Lancashire County Museum Service doesn't really know what to do with Mr Holt's collection of over 5000 bricks ;-)
http://www.aboutlancs.com/holts.htm

However the quality of any brick will be partly dependent upon the quality of the clay that it's made from, which means that the best bricks are likely to come from the south-east of Britain where tertiary formations of sedimentary rocks will mean that there's an abundance of high-quality clay:
https://vle.whs.bucks.sch.uk/pluginfile.php/53615/mod_resource/content/0/F.%20Rock%20Cycle%20VLE/Geological%20Time/UKGeologyMap.png

[Mosaic]

Cheers Chris - I appreciate, and what a brilliant link.
However there is little chance that SE bricks were imported. Bricks didn't generally travel more than a couple of miles and that only if a convenient canal existed. The return cargo was usually refuse, to be burned as fuel in the brick kilns - nice examples along the Thames Estuary towards Shoeburyness.

[andres]

Lots of buildings built with the famous Accrington brick round where I live. All in excellent, well preserved condition.Probably the bricks were made up here in Accrington and shipped along the canals.I have heard the term ''red brick universities''.Why they are not as well preserved in Liverpool is very interesting .Damage could be caused by soluble salts ??

[Mosaic]

The Nori brickworks - ah happy days spent fielding the girls on cross country as they tried to 'disappear' between Jacksons Field and Nori brickworks......
But to return to your point Andres: the wonderful ironstone Nori bricks are a bit later in date than the terraces in Liverpool I was passing. They adorn many an out-of-town villa around Liverpool but not the run-down cheapo terraces. I'm trying to test a theory that poor firing is responsible for a whole batch of rotten scouse bricks. I don't think pollution could account for it.

[andres]

They spelt iron backwards by mistake didn't they, and it ended up as 'nori''. How far back do you mean? The club that I work was built from Accrington bricks in mid 1800s .

[Mosaic]

The Nori bricks became very popular and were exported widely thru the NW after the 1850s - it's unusual to fond ironstone brick before that date, wider than the immediate area of the kilns. So an Accrington building makes sense. The terraces I was looking at in liverpool looked 1870s onwards and are deplorably built in every sense. Not quality work at all.

[andres]

When I am out and about tomorrow I am going to take a much closer look at the buildings around me . Very interesting topic.

[Mosaic]

You n me Andres - soul brothers.

[seadogg]

Wonder if bricks might have been made of fairly abundant but inconsistent boulder clay deposited by the last great ice sheet? If so that would reinforce Chris's point. There were also brickworks along the Welsh Border with clay from the Carboniferous coal measures. Locally there is a lot of sandy soil and much of the bedrock in the area is Triassic New Red Sandstone (through which the Olive Mount cutting was driven).

[andres]

mosaic ---should say 'sister'