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Monument details
| HER Number: | TQ 97 SW 90 |
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| Type of record: | Monument |
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| Name: | Site of Queenborough pottery works,Queenborough |
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Summary
Site of the former Pyramid Works of Alfred Johnson and Son works making pottery sanitary ware. Operational from 1908 until 2003, although the bottle kilns were demolished in the early 1990s.
| Grid Reference: | TQ 90888 71742 |
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| Map Sheet: | TQ97SW |
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| Parish: | QUEENBOROUGH, SWALE, KENT |
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Monument Types
Full description
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Pottery works dating from the first half of the 20th century producing earthenware sanitary ware. Marked on the 4th edition OS. The factory was erected in 1909 for Alfred Johnson and Son Ltd, and used technology from its parent company in Wessel (Rhineland). A feature of the works was banks of bottle kilns for firing its products.
This formed part of the industrial estate of the Rushenden Estate Co.
See Industrial Archaeology Review, May 2007, pp 31-51.
Site of the former Pyramid Works of Alfred Johnson and Son works making pottery sanitary ware. Operational from 1908 until 2003, although the bottle kilns were demolished in the early 1990s.
A watching brief conducted in 2015 discovered that the industrial buildings on the site had been demolished down to concrete slab level. Archaeological recording focussed on the central part of the site where the pottery kilns are shown on historic maps and aerial photographs. These records show eighteen large bottle kiln chimneys in two rows, one row of ten and the other eight. During the watching brief sixteen out of eighteen identified kiln bases were revealed by controlled mechanical excavation, all of which were found to be of very similar construction, although in a very poor state of preservation. The outline of the kilns was surveyed for comparison with the historic maps, and the best preserved example was cleaned and recorded in more detail. (2)
Jim Preston Personal Communication (Verbal communication). SKE13236.
Jim Preston Personal Communication (Verbal communication). Ske13236.
<2> Oxford Archaeology South, 2016, Queenborough and Rushenden Phase 2 – The former Pyramid Works of Alfred Johnson and Son, Queenborough, Kent: Archaeological Watching Brief Report (Unpublished document). SKE51879.
Sources and further reading
| Cross-ref.
| Source description | | --- | Verbal communication: Jim Preston Personal Communication. |
| <2> | Unpublished document: Oxford Archaeology South. 2016. Queenborough and Rushenden Phase 2 – The former Pyramid Works of Alfred Johnson and Son, Queenborough, Kent: Archaeological Watching Brief Report. |
