Ughill
The fire brick company Thomas Wragg & Sons owned a Pot Clay mine immediately to the south east of the hamlet. Pot Clay is the impure version of Ganister and was in demand in the Sheffield steel industry to make bricks for the lining of furnaces. In the early 1970s the mine was producing 15,000 tons of clay per year, with the company quoting, “The mine can be worked at the present rate for 100 years”. A refractory brick works stood at the entrance to the mine. However the Ughill mine had drainage problems and although powerful pumps had been installed in the 1950s to pump between 600 and 800 gallons per minute from the mine, the mine closed on 17 November 1977. It had become uneconomic to mine the clay due to water problems and the owners found it more profitable to bring in clay from the Midlands. The site of the mine has been landscaped and returned to agricultural use. J&J Dyson mined fireclay at their open cast quarry at Wheatshire between Ughill and Sugworth. The quarry is closed but can still be seen from the nearby road. Thos. Wragg had small firebrick works at Load Brook (closed 1957) and Brookside (Stopes Road, Stannington, closed 1960) the former previously owned by the Trickett family, the latter by the Drabble family and a major works (Old Wheel Brick Works) in the nearby Loxley Valley. Wraggs along with its local competitors, J&J Dyson of Griffs Works, Stannington and Thos. Marshall of Storrs Bridge Works, Loxley, mined the Stannington Pot Clay seam and manufactured fireclay-based casting pit holloware refractories for use in steel making worldwide. All three plants closed following a collapse in demand for casting pit refractories of the type made locally mainly because of the introduction of continuous casting of steel worldwide and the general demise of the British steel industry.
Rockland Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania
On Beaver Creek was manufactured paper and birch oil. A kind of clay has been found from which chinaware is made. A pottery was also operated in the vicinity. A granite, very much like Vermont granite, is found near New Jerusalem. There is a marble saw mill on the Sacony near Grim's mill, where large blocks of marble are sawed into desirable sizes. It has been in operation since 1864. None of the early mines are now in operation.