Location:
- Grid reference: TM25273169
- x=625270
- y=231690
- 51°56'17"N; 1°16'38"E
- Civil Parish: Dovercourt, Essex
Clinker manufacture operational: 1856-1906
Approximate total clinker production: 530,000 tonnes
Raw materials: Thames Chalk and Alluvium partly from the Medway and partly from the Stour foreshore.
Ownership: J. Pattrick and Sons Ltd
The plant previously made Roman Cement using the large deposits of septaria around Harwich. There were four small Roman cement kilns, and in 1854, three of these were converted for Portland cement. Actual Portland cement manufacture commenced around 1856, capacity 30 t/week. Further kilns were added: in 1861, 4 (83 t/week): in 1866, 2 (44 t/week), and in 1870, 4 (89 t/week). This gave a total complement of 13 Portland bottle kilns and slurry backs, and a capacity of 246 t/week. Gradual replacement of earlier kilns with larger versions raised capacity to 330 t/week and this remained the complement until closure. The plant primarily used water transport, with its own wharf on the Stour estuary, although, placed adjacent to Dovercourt station, it could also use the Great Eastern railway. Part of the site is now under housing, but most of it is still waste land, and some foundations are identifiable.
Power supply
Separate direct-drive steam engines drove the raw and finish mills
Rawmills
There were multiple washmills making thin slurry.
No rotary kilns were installed.
Sources: