Location:
- Grid reference: ST30433819
- x=330430
- y=138190
- 51°8'19"N; 2°59'39"W
- Civil Parish: Bridgwater Without, Somerset
Clinker manufacture operational: 1894-1942
Approximate total clinker production: 470,000 tonnes
Raw materials: Blue Lias Limestone (Blue Lias Formation: 190-200 Ma) by rail from Cossington (336400,140800 - 7.6 km) and from the Puriton quarries (see Dunball)
Ownership: John Board and Co.
It may be a typo, but it's not my typo. Although Board's logo was a sphinx (image still sought), Board's always spelled it this way, and even persuaded the fastidious Ordnance Survey to do the same. Sometimes called Wylds Works: the Wylds is the river-bank district in which it was situated, and not an owner. The plant represented an expansion of Board's operation begun at Dunball. Francis (p 178) says it started "at the turn of the century", but it started in 1894. An initial four bottle kilns (1907 output 120 t/week ), expanded to ten (300 t/week). These appear to have been the last bottle kilns used for cement manufacture in Britain. There may also have been a Schneider kiln. The site was close to the river Parrett and may have used this for transport of materials from Puriton, but its sidings on the Somerset & Dorset Joint Railway were its main transport link. The site is now part of the Wylds industrial estate, and little, if anything, remains.
Power supply
The plant was, at least originally, direct-driven by a steam engine.
Rawmills
No information
No rotary kilns were installed.
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