Stewartby
Coordinates: 52°04′09″N 0°30′50″W / 52.0691°N 0.5139°W
Stewartby is a model village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, originally built for the workers of The London Brick Company. The village housing and town community centre was designed by the noted neo-Georgian architect Sir Albert Richardson a later and more modern development than such better-known Victorian model villages as Saltaire. Today, Stewartby parish also includes Kempston Hardwick.
Started in 1926, Stewartby is also a later model village than Woodlands which was first planned in 1905.
The town takes its name from the Stewart family, whose famous son Sir Malcolm Stewart who bought the London Brick Company in the town in the 1920s. The site closed in 2008 as the owners, Hanson, cannot meet UK limits for sulphur dioxide emissions.[2] The four chimneys remaining were due to be demolished upon closure but these have since been listed for preservation of Bedfordshire's brick-related history. and will remain.[3]
Stewartby brickworks was home to the world’s biggest kiln and produced 18 million bricks at the height of production.
BJ Forder & Son opened the first brickworks in Wootton Pillinge in 1897.
Wootton Pillinge was renamed Stewartby in 1937 in recognition of the Stewart family who had been instrumental in developing the brickworks.
The firm became London Brick Company and Forders Limited in 1926, and shortened to London Brick Company in 1936.
At the height of the industry’s production there were 167 brick chimneys in the Marston Vale.
In the 1970s Bedfordshire produced 20% of England’s bricks.
At its peak London Brick Company had its own ambulance and fire crews, a horticultural department and a photographic department, as well as its own swimming pool inside the factory, and ran a number of sports clubs.
More than £1 million was spent on Stewartby Brickworks in 2005-7 in an attempt to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions.
The factory used Lower Oxford Clay, which is made up of 5% seaweed, formed 150 million years ago when it was on the sea bed. This removed the need to add coal to the fire, as the organic material burned.
Stewartby has a railway station on the Marston Vale Line.
The village was to have been the planned location for the proposed National Institute for Research into Aquatic Habitats (NIRAH). This project was scrapped in June 2015 due to lack of investment funding.[4]
Stewartby has been home to Stewartby Village Football Club since 1999. With Stewartby Village FC under the new management of Mike Griffin for the 2009/10 season, starting a new chapter in the Bedfordshire County League Division 4.
Stewartby is also home to Stewartby Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society who have been putting on performances of concerts and Gilbert and Sullivan operettas in the village hall since 1951.
Kimberley College is a sixth form centre which opened in Stewartby in September 2013.[5]
See also
References
- ↑ "Neighbourhood Statistics - Stewartby (CP) Parish". Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 2008-02-11.
- ↑ "Brickworks closure axes 200 jobs". BBC News. 2007-11-28. Retrieved 2008-02-11.
- ↑ "Listing saves brickworks chimneys". BBC News. 2008-01-10. Retrieved 2008-02-11.
- ↑ "Site of NIRAH aquarium plan at Quest Pit Stewartby sold". Bedford Today. 2015-06-25. Retrieved 2015-12-07.
- ↑ "New Sixth Form College | University of Bedfordshire | Bedford College & Schools in Bedfordshire". Bedfordshire-news.co.uk. Retrieved 2013-06-06.
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stewartby. |
- 2001 Census - Parish Profile for Stewartby
- Village website
- Stewartby pages at the Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service
- Stewartby Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society