Oatlands

Another nice sunny day today. My blip is of a brick kiln, one of a pair found at Oatlands in St.Sampsons. I have found the following information about this location.

Oatlands was originally a farm, recorded as far back as the late 1700s, by 1898 it was recorded as having the characteristic kilns still seen today. These were used to fire pots and bricks used in growing and building around the island. The kilns formed a major part of the business of the farm from the late 1800s until the mid-1920s.
Pots would be fashioned from clay and fired in the kilns. They were made in sizes numbered eight to 32 depending on their purpose.

The bricks were made in moulds and left to dry in the fields before firing. The bricks were marked with the initials of the people running the works at the time, for example between 1910 and 1914 they bore the imprint "G&MD" for George and Martyn Dorey who ran the kiln during that year.

The bricks were then used locally in making chimneys and boiler pits at local vineries, as well as houses and the pots were used within the then world famous growing industry of Guernsey.

By the early 1980s the farm buildings and kilns had fallen into disuse, though the land was still being used for farming. It was then that the site was renovated to become Oatlands craft centre.