Brick-making in Sittingbourne

The building of Victorian London created a vast demand for bricks and the Sittingbourne area had the raw materials to make the yellow Kent Stock Brick which was cheaper to make than the more traditional red brick.

They needed to have a high tensile strength because they were needed for the new breed of large buildings that were being constructed in London, like the Law Courts, Tower Bridge, Kings Cross railway station, Westminster Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, et al; they needed to be strong. 

Smeed Dean of Sittingbourne was the largest brick manufacturer in Britain and produced over 60 million bricks in 1877.