St Peters Brickpit Geological Site, St Peters, NSW, Australia - Australian Heritage Sites on Waymarking.com

Sydney Park contains a well known Sydney icon,the tall chimneys that rise above the former brickworks site. The brick kilns have not been used for more than 60 years but the historic structures remain, providing an instantly recognisable landmark in the north-western corner of the park. To the south end lies the St Peters Brickpit Geological Site.
A number of brick, pottery and tile works were established in the area from the early 19th century to exploit this readily available resource.

In 1808, Needham’s 40 acre land grant was sold to John and Gregory Blaxland, the land was purchased by Daniel Cooper in 1822, and it became part of Cooper family’s extensive landholdings in the area, known as the Waterloo Estate. Several generations of the Cooper family preferred to lease rather than sell and subdivide their land in the 19th century. Portions of the former Needham grant were leased by brickmakers from the early 1880s and probably earlier.

In 1887, Josiah Gentle purchased just over 2 acres of land on the corner of the Cooks River Road (today’s Princes Highway) ‘with all buildings and rights of way’ (Land Titles Office Book 364 No 190). Gentle established the Bedford Brick Works here in 1893, naming it after his home town in England. He continued to buy up adjoining land until 1908 to expand his brickworks. Clay was extracted from the deep pits and large kilns fired it into bricks.
Information from the History of Sydney Park: (visit link)

The Brickpit has been quarried for shale and clay. The shale is Ashfiled shale, the lowest known formation of the upper Triassic Wianamatta group which overlays the Hawkesbury Sandstone. The quarry is situated within the Botany Basin, a sub-basin of the large sedimentary Sydney Basin. The siltstone of the Ashfield shale is locally derived and was probably deposited in a large shallow delta. Where the siltstone is carbonaceous it contains abundant plant fragments, nodules and small guilielites (compacted soft marine organisms). The St Peter's quarries, which once numbered more than twenty, have been a rich source of fossils. Invertebrate fossils include bivalves, isopods and insects. Vertebrate fossils include fish and an amphibian named PARACYCLOTOSAURUS DAVIDII a member of the sub-class Labyrinthodontia. An excellent specimen of this species, approximately 2.3m long, was found in one of the brickpits. Labryrinthodont amphibians had fish like scales over most of their bodies. It is thought that P DAVIDII lived in fresh water lakes and may have hunted like the modern day crocodile. The brickpit provides an excellent opportunity to observe geological structures in fresh shales in siltstones including features associated with deposition of the sedimentary rocks, later formed fractures such as joints and faults (including normal and reverse faults) and recent mass movements on the margins of the quarry. Blue/grey clay, yellow sand and shell horizons directly overlie the laterite developed on the Ashfield shale on southern and eastern margins of the quarry. They are part of the group of sediments collectively known as the Botany Sands which were deposited during the late Pleistocene/early Holocene (18,000 to 6,000 years bp) when the sea level rose and flooded Botany Bay and the Georges River. These deposits occur at what was the original ground level before quarrying. The deposit consists of shell beds, mainly ANADARA TRAPEZIA (Sydney cockle) and OSTREA ANGASI (mud oyster) that occur within sand. The deposits have been interpreted as a former shoreline of Botany Bay with marginal marine and sand facies of possible Aeolian origin.
Source: Australian Heritage Database.

Register of the National Estate (Non-statutory archive)
Class Natural
Legal Status Registered (14/05/1991)
Place ID 16240
Place File No 1/12/025/0024

List: Register of the National Estate Place ID: 16240 Place File No: 1/12/025/0024 URL database reference: [Web Link] Status: Registered Year built: Early 1800s.

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Date Logged Log   05/26/2017 Punga and Paua visited it