Our Treasures: Fascinating history of Kamo Brickworks seen at Whangārei Museum

Workers take a break at the Kamo Brickworks, which was founded in 1916 and closed in the 1980s.

The Kamo Brick Story

Sometimes I'm surprised by what grabs my attention. In a museum filled with beautiful relics from our past, skeletons of animals that once walked on our land and swam in our water, furniture crafted with enduring elegance and stories of love, loss, heroics and bravery… what grabbed my attention this week was one little brick.

But that one little brick is very special. Imprinted with the word "Kamo", it comes with its own story of industry, development and pioneering technology. That one little brick helped to lay the foundation for many New Zealand industries.

The Brickworks, situated at the northern end of Kamo, was founded by two Dalmatian immigrants in 1916. They created standard building bricks until Kamo Potteries Ltd took over in 1921.

It was during this time that it was discovered the clay extracted from the hillside next to the factory and from Kauri Mountain was a high alumina clay which resulted in quality, heavy-duty bricks, able to withstand great heat. This made the clay perfect for creating firebricks and in its first year, the company was producing 50,000 bricks per month.

By 1931, the brickworks expanded from domestic to industrial and began manufacturing firebricks for a range of companies and industries, in New Zealand and abroad.

Many Northlanders will have bricks made at the Kamo Brickworks.

Some notable uses included the lining of cement kilns used by the Wilsons Portland Cement Co. Ltd, the lining of the oil-burning furnaces in HMNZS Achilles during World War II and, at one time, every railway engine in New Zealand was also lined with Kamo bricks.

Such was the demand for the Kamo brick that the factory underwent an expansion, the first stage of which was completed in 1961. This meant it could now meet the substantial needs of heavy industries while producing a variety of firebricks and products including mortars and castable, plastic and moldable refractories.

Another change in 1966 saw the brickworks become the Kamo Green Refractory Co, which enlisted the technical and engineering services of a company in Missouri, USA.

The next 20 years were good for the Kamo brick.

An aerial view of the Kamo Brickworks.

Then in the mid-1980s, demand for bricks began to wane and in 1988 the land and building were transformed into a garden centre called The Brickworks. Today, 34 years later, the site is still a garden centre, now run by Greenfingers.

That one little brick, currently on display in Whangārei Museum, continues to be a very big part of a very big story.