Beach find a relic of the past

One of William Crawford’s many pictures, of the Gisborne Brick and Pipe Company works in 1912, with Huxley Road running across the background. Picture courtesy of Tairāwhiti Museum

History is everywhere you look . . . from the steps on a hillside marking an old pā site to a brick on the beach.

This particular brick — or should we say, piece of brick— lay on the beach just south of Midway, its light colour attracting attention amidst all the bits of driftwood.

Closer examination showed it was indeed a brick — about half of one — much weathered by sea, sun and surf.

Unremarkable except for part of a manufacturer’s stamp still legible on one side.

Imprinted on the battered and broken piece of baked clay were the remains of two lines of letters

. . . the top line starting “J J” with the bottom piece of an O or a C.

The second line within what was an oblong indent were the letters

“AUC” with the bottom part of what would have been a K.

Bricks, like pieces of old coal, are occasionally found on Gisborne’s beaches — demolition remains from years ago; debris or cargo from ships that have run aground, or even fire bricks that surrounded vessels’ steam engines.

Some half a dozen or more ships, small and large, have ended up on the beach over the years — usually driven ashore by fierce storms.

Some were refloated, some broke up, some had their cargo salvaged and carted ashore for the owners or resale.

So what story lay behind this light-coloured brick?

That the bottom line in full would have read AUCKLAND was obvious, but who was the manufacturer?

Research on the internet and via the Tairāwhiti Museum website reveals the brick’s original full stamping would have looked like this:

J J Craig were a large, prize-winning brick and pipe-making company in Avondale from 1896 to 1920, owned by prominent businessman J J Craig, who had land and other businesses including shipping.

The Avondale Brick and Pottery Co Ltd also made flower pots, water filters, spirit jars, tiles and supplied building materials.

They were apparently the largest brickmaker “in the colony”, employing 100 men, churning out 90,000 bricks a day.

Later the firm passed into the ownership of Winstone Ltd, who are now incorporated as part of the Fletcher Building empire.

The Gisborne connection comes from James Craig buying up and expanding the Gisborne Brick and Pipe Co, established in Huxley Road on a 40-acre piece of land that was formerly Hansen’s Farm, Kaiti.

Clay was dug out from the hills that ran behind, and the former brickworks manager’s house is still there on the corner of Huxley and Lyell roads (picture not included for privacy reasons).

It was the largest brickworks in Gisborne, and during its time supplied millions of bricks to various projects around town — including the government buildings in the Reads Quay-Customhouse Street area.

Its biggest job was supplying some three million bricks and around 200,000 tiles for a new hospital on Hospital Hill.

It also supplied bricks to the Nelson Brothers freezing works at Taruheru (started 1889, expanded 1900) and the Gisborne Sheepfarmers’ Kaiti works (built c. 1900).

In 1909 the brickworks was rated as among the largest and “certainly about the most up to date in New Zealand” and had the capacity to produce 90,000 to 100,000 bricks a week.

However, at times bricks were in short supply in Gisborne and elsewhere, and Mr Craig had to ship in stored bricks from Auckland to keep projects going.

He was also shut down at times when Kaiti residents complained to council that their roads were being ruined by the heavy and large iron-rimmed wheels of the brick carts.

Smaller brickworks operated elsewhere in the town but by the turn of the century, brick was starting to be supplanted by

concrete for major building work and the Gisborne Brick and Pipe Co shut down in 1920.