Museum floor plan

David Sallery has set up the most amazing website all about bricks with names and letters on. If you want a brick identified, please get over to The Old Bricks website 

I am indebted to him for information which has helped identify and learn about the bricks on this page.

Beach bricks

Most bricks we find on the beach are eroded, the edges smoothed and any wording that may once have been there is no longer.

Some bricks are eroded into shapes that would be unrecognisable as bricks if it were not for that tell-tale brick colour.

Sometimes, however, we find a brick that has not been in the water long or has been buried in the dunes and their maker's name is still visible...

Brick with SWB on it.

According to the Old Bricks website, this is a brick from the Foss Brick & Tile Works in Millbrook, Cornwall which was functioing between 1870 and 1913. 

Found: 2024

Brick with 'DY' on it

I was hoping that the name on this brick was LUNDY as I could see Lundy from where I found it. However, I can't find an trace of any bricks called Lundy. It seems more likely that the word is actually CANDY which suggests it is from brickworks in Newton Abbot. The limpet seemed happy wherever the brick was from.

Found: North Devon. 2024

Brick with Plowman Old Fletton on it

Old Fletton is now a part of Peterborough.

Hexter Humpherson & co. Newton Abbot

Potteries and Brick and Tile works in Newton Abbot1889 to 1956

Found: Seth Draper. Porthcawl. c 2024

Brick which perhaps says W Thomas & Co Wellington

It is very eroded so not easy to read but perhaps was made by William Thomas & Co Ltd. The brickworks, in Wellington, were functioning between 1861 and1966.

Found: North Devon 2024

I have since found another, clearer version - below.

Brick which probably has London written on it

The London Brick Company was actually founded in Peterborough. Presumably, the bricks would have been too long if they had Peterborough written on them. The company has been making bricks since 1900 most of which carry the word 'London', LBC or 'London Brick' in full. The company was set up to make fletton bricks which were composed of Oxford Clay and, as early as 1931, made as many as a billion bricks a year.

Found: North Devon 2022