McEvoy & Holt's Britannia Brand.
Location:
- Grid reference: TQ61217501
- x=561210
- y=175010
- 51°27'4"N; 0°19'13"E
- Civil Parish: Swanscombe, Kent
Clinker manufacture operational: 1879-1902
Approximate total clinker production: 290,000 tonnes
Raw materials:
- Upper Chalk (Seaford Chalk Formation: 85-88 Ma) from the NCBC quarries
- Thames Alluvial Clay
Ownership:
- 1879-1900 McEvoy and Holt
- 1900-1902 APCM (Blue Circle)
Also known as McEvoy & Holt’s. There were originally two chamber kilns (64 t/week), but these were rapidly expanded to 5 (143 t/week ~1881), 11 (302 t/week ~1883), 12 (328 t/week ~1886), 16 (428 t/week ~1891) and 17 (453 t/week 1898). The company made itself unpopular among some British manufacturers by openly admitting and promoting the practice, almost universal in the 1890s, of adulterating cement. The plant was promptly closed after the APCM takeover. There was a rail link, but most product was despatched by water from Tower pier. Completely re-developed, it is now a light industrial site.
Power supply
The plant was driven directly by a 250 HP steam engine adjacent to a combined raw and finish mill house.
Rawmills
There were two rough mills, four flat stone mills and two screeners.
No rotary kilns were installed.
Sources::
- Primary Sources:
- Greenhithe Archive
- Ordnance Survey 1:2500 mapping
- BGS mapping and monographs
- Gravesend & Northfleet Standard, 13/5/1892, p 8
- Confirmatory Sources: