CW Fires Up the Kiln

Friday, September 10, 2010

 

It’s the stuff of every young boy’s dream: a pit full of mud you can jump into, a mountain of dirt and a big fire that’s only going to get bigger. Oh, and sticks the perfect size for a sword fight.

 

Is it a new Peter Pan-inspired theme park? No. It’s Colonial Williamsburg’s annual kiln firing at the brick yard, happening a good month early this year in order to have enough bricks to get the reconstruction of the Anderson Blacksmith and Public Armoury underway.

The kiln looks like the beginnings of construction for an ancient temple, square and tall with clay outer walls and several small entrances that look like doors.

Once you get close enough, though, you’ll see flames dancing in the doorways and smoke wafting from the ceiling, and some sweating interpreters in colonial garb tossing big sticks inside to feed the fire.

Brickmaker Jason Whitehead explains that there are 15,000 bricks that comprise the current kiln. The firing process started Wednesday, with workers taking shifts to feed the fire day and night until the internal temperature reaches close to 2,000 degrees. It’s a far cry from today’s modern brickmaking, which is quick and mostly automated.

The brickyard is quiet Thursday afternoon, with only a small group of students listening to a tour guide talk about the brick-making process. They look longingly at the giant fire to their right, and the mud pit to their left.

Whitehead says usually every year the brick firing draws “groupies” who love the process and history that goes into the creation of historically-accurate “colonial” bricks – in fact, some of last years’ stock went to the White House, he says with pride.

This year, there will be two firings to get the 25,000 bricks needed for the renovation project, so the fall firing had to begin earlier – likely to the chagrin of the kiln fans. Don’t feel too bad for them, though, because they’ll get another chance to be a part of the firing process with the next one scheduled for December 8.

One of those fans, retiree Larry Reynolds, is living the dream. He’s been volunteering at CW firings for 11 years now, and he drives down from Silver Spring, Maryland, to toss logs on the fire, haul bricks, stack wood, and other such fun activities.

“This was my vacation for years when I was still working,” he says with a smile. Reynolds’ wife wasn’t on hand to share her thoughts on those years’ worth of vacations spent rollicking in mud and heat, but he says she generally enjoys the process and comes down for a few days each time to see how things are getting along.

He and his wife are longtime CW donors, and when they came for a visit one year, it happened that their trip was during one of the kiln firings. Reynolds asked to give the men a hand for a bit, and thus began his addiction to the process.

The process used to make the bricks and the kiln is, like most everything else in Colonial Williamsburg, true to the method used at the time, according to Whitehead. Men feed the flames around the clock with stacks of wood – about 10 cords total (a cord is four feet high, four feet wide, and eight feet long). As the heat dries out the bricks, they change color. Once they start to glow after about four days, the brickmakers know they’re done.

Even though one batch of bricks is nearly ready to come out, in another part of the brickyard more brickmakers are hard at work shaping bricks for the next firing (with the help of visitors).

A huge mud trough sits beneath a tent, next to a mountain of clay brought in from neighboring Charles City County. A tired but smiling woman in a flowing colonial dress is ankle-deep in mud and stomping rhythmically. She stops periodically to toss out stones and sticks, and invites onlookers to kick off their shoes and join her.

There’s still time left to stomp in the mud and take a look at the monstrous kiln. The process will continue until it reaches the proper temperature, probably sometime on Sunday.

The brickyard is located north of Nicholson Street between North England and Botetourt Streets in the historic area, but if you have trouble finding it any interpreter will be glad to point the way.

The reconstruction of Anderson’s industrial complex will include the armoury, a kitchen, a privy, two storage buildings and a tinsmith’s shop — all located on the site of the present blacksmith’s shop. The process will take thousands of bricks, which will all be made at the brick yard.