A WALLSEND woman is seeking to have a historic local green space given greater protection as the suburb celebrates its 150th anniversary.
Lyndal Morrow, who lives in Victory Parade near the site, has asked the City of Newcastle to officially designate Wallsend Brickworks Park as a site of heritage significance.
The much-loved Wallsend Brickworks Park officially opened on April 9, 2006, after a long struggle. Today it's an oasis in the middle of suburbia. Running north-south, the "new" park is a giant green rectangle now flanked by trees and houses with the remains of a quarry, a chimney stack, pumphouse relics and wetlands. It's also a sanctuary for hidden wildlife. The land was gradually transformed from a degraded and derelict industrial site which had operated as an iconic district brickworks from 1891 to 1977.
But after 86 years, increasing competition from Sydney and Hunter Valley brickmakers, plus public pressure to reduce dark smoke belching from brick kilns, sealed its fate.
This Wallsend Brick and Tile Company operated off busy Newcastle Road on the border of Jesmond and Wallsend for decades, producing at its peak about 400,000 bricks a week. The best known were the Wallsend "red bellies" because of the cherry-red clay dug up onsite.
The original brickworks set-up here was by Newcastle Wallsend Coal mining operations (from 1859). In that steam-powered age, the first bricks fired onsite were for the coal company's shaft linings and buildings.
But the famous Wallsend brickworks later established here opened on the eve of the 1890s Depression when the NSW building industry suddenly collapsed. Many brickworks closed, yet the Wallsend brickworks somehow defied the business trend and survived.
"The brickworks became a major local supplier for the building needs of a young city," Morrow told Weekender.
"Many houses in Newcastle's surrounding areas were built from these including St John the Evangelist Catholic Church at Lambton, plus Wallsend Hospital and the Great Hall at Newcastle University. In fact, the Great Hall can still be seen from a nature trail of original remnant bushland into Brickworks Park that's been retained along Victory Parade.
"To raise funds for the construction of the Great Hall in the 1960s and '70s, Newcastle Lord Mayor Frank Purdue launched a 'buy a brick' campaign with great success.
"My grandfather, a well-known local builder/carpenter in the area, was very proud that Wallsend bricks were chosen over other companies in Newcastle and Maitland. Much later I was to learn of an earlier family connection to the brickworks. My father's grandfather Jim Penman had worked there, along with his son Stan, after returning from World War I.
"Not everyone was a coal miner at Wallsend and two of my mother's uncles were also employed there. Emeryus Lewis was the chief brickmaker and site foreman with Charlie Goodwin as the (brick) carrier.
"Great uncle Charlie would saddle his horses up from his house at the top of Bluegum Road (Jesmond) and they would find their way to the pit where the driver would be waiting. The horses were like children to him."
Morrow said that in late 1997, 20 years after the closure of the brickworks, she returned to Wallsend to restore the 1930 California bungalow home of her late grandparents. Her grandfather, along with his brothers, the Hugo brothers, built many local homes without any power tools. In later years, Hugo Reserve which borders Victory Parade, Myall and Iloura streets was named after the four brothers.
Morrow said she learned more about her extended family history connection during the formation of the Wallsend East Resident Association. By then the character of her suburb was rapidly changing. After a century of quarrying, the Wallsend brick pits had closed in March 1977. The site became neglected and the focus of illegal dumping. Council then bought the site in 1980.
Morrow said that in 1999 her resident group became aware Newcastle council was preparing to sell the old brickworks land for further light industrial development. It was a unifying moment. A public meeting was called and the late Alderman Vic Bell was shocked by the number of people present, saying "People don't realise their own power".
After the pressure of a sustained public campaign, council reversed its decision and adopted a site plan of management in 2001. A concept masterplan to create the future park area stated that "the existing rugged nature of the site with its pond, cliffs and remnant bushland is unique in Newcastle".
The contours of the contaminated site were reshaped with more than 25,000 tonnes of clean soil spread over road base material beneath. More than 2000 trees were also planted. Triangular shapes were soon installed to represent the original kiln layout, with some trees planted to symbolise, from afar, smoke from the kiln towers.
Morrow said it took the community seven years to have the area rezoned and reclaimed as greenspace paying homage to its industrial past. The Brickworks Park helped to offset the development of the Silver Ridge Estate, once mature native bushland on the western ridge of Jesmond forest earlier formally designated as a green belt.
Morrow said there was much rich history in the present pocket of bushland park. The area, for example, adjacent to the old brickworks had been the site of a WWII searchlight station operated by AWAS, or the Australian Women's Army Service, between 1943 and '45 who searched the skies at night for enemy aircraft - and frequently found these airspace "invaders" coming in from the sea, mapping the district.
Today the amazing transformation which is the Wallsend Brickworks Park also includes a striking sculpture made entirely of recycled bricks by Tim Spellman (from 2005) called Kullas Incubator. Morrow also points out that examining the quarry face visible from the nearby viewing platform is to look back 250 million years to when Australia was joined to Antarctica, and the many fossils in the sandstone reflect seismic time changes.
She said that the local Brickworks Park was now doubly important following the parallel construction path of the nearby inner-city bypass (Rankin Park to Jesmond) and "the loss of another 54 hectares of mature bushland habitat".
