The Peggs Green Brick
Like most gardens around here I expect, there are always surprises, not just interesting seedlings which grow into fine specimens of ragwort and weird-looking caterpillars which may turn into beautiful moths - or eat your cabbages, but also stones, shells, children’s toys, broken crockery – and BRICKS.
I’m rather fond of bricks. Maybe it’s their warm welcoming colours or the variety of sizes and shapes, but also the promise or memory of being part of a home with a family and a story to tell. Most of the houses and cottages in and around Coleorton are brick-built. Not really surprising since we are on clay sub-soil (and gardeners know all about that!), the raw material for bricks, and there was once a ready source of coal for use in firing the kilns.
There are a lot of old bricks in our Peggs Green garden, all sizes, shapes and conditions. Before our cottages were built in 1860 there were a couple of small cottages on the lane at the side of our garden which appear to have been demolished shortly after. Also our cottages have undergone considerable modification from four 2-up 2-downs to a four-bed house with a granny-annex. I’ve found bricks that are just great lumps of clay obviously fashioned by hand with no makers or other markings, some with names – Gibbs Bros of Loughborough, Tucker Loughborough and one which was clearly machine made, slimmer than most and with a fancy logo imprinted. It seems to depict CW Co Ltd or perhaps WC Co Ltd.
I consulted a brick enthusiasts website https://www.brocross.com/Bricks/Penmorfa/Pages/england22a.htm, sent them a photo and they have attributed this brick to Whitwick Colliery. However, I’m not sure about this as no other Whitwick Colliery bricks yet discovered have this logo. However, Peggs Green is only a couple of miles from Whitwick.
A complete floor layer of these was found while restoring a house on Loughborough Road, Peggs Green, and several broken bricks found when when the back garden of Yew Tree House (formerly The White House owned by the Kidgers opposite Froggarts Cottage) was dug up during summer 2023.
The California pit (Coleorton No1 1849 – 1873) was opposite the New Inn and as common practice in the area a brickworks was established next to it. Not a lot is known about the California Brickworks but it was operating after the coalmine was closed and there were 3 kilns and a clay pit shown on maps around 1900. In 1897 California Brick Works, owned at that time by John H. Lager & Co, placed several advertisements in the Coalville Times for blue bricks but also “Red Pressed Facing, Floor Bricks & c”. Is it possible the CW logo referred to California Brickworks? Maybe. If anyone has further information, or indeed more of these or similar bricks, please email Sandra at enquiries@coleortonheritage.org.uk or phone 01530 440000.
Sandra Dillon
member of the Coleorton Heritage Group
October 2025
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