Bricktacular

Mum and Dad found this brick the other day on their travels and thought I might like it.  I do after all have a brick collection.  I haven't counted them but there are perhaps a hundred, and mostly all different and some very local indeed.  A guy in Jedburgh has a shedful with something like 4000 bricks.

It turns out that no-one is quite sure where Scotia-frogged bricks were made.  The presumption is Scotland...somewhere, but Scotia Bank (and Scotia Lane) in deepest Tunstall in Stoke-on-Trent is a good contender too.  If you look on the old maps, in those parts at the turn of the 20th century they were coal mining and clay extracting and pottery making and brickmaking like it was going out of fashion.  Burslem and Tunstall was home to many industries including the behemoth that was Senyd Collieries, which also seemed at one time to have the name Scotia & Senyd Brick & Marl Co. Ltd.

At the risk of sounding like Patrick Moore, "Was the Senyd company ultimately responsible for Scotia Bricks?  We may never know."