Brickearth is a term used in southeast England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 for loess

Loess

Loess is an aeolian sediment formed by the accumulation of wind-blown silt, typically in the 20–50 micrometre size range, twenty percent or less clay and the balance equal parts sand and silt that are loosely cemented by calcium carbonate...

, a wind-blown dust deposited under extremely cold, dry, peri- or postglacial conditions. The name arises from its use in making house brick

Brick

A brick is a block of ceramic material used in masonry construction, usually laid using various kinds of mortar. It has been regarded as one of the longest lasting and strongest building materials used throughout history.-History:...

s. The Brickearth is normally represented on 1:50,000 solid and drift edition geological maps. In the Thames Valley area, where the Brickearth overlies certain River Terrace Gravels, it has been reclassified on more recent maps as the "Langley Silt Complex".

Brickearth is a superficial deposit of homeogenous structureless loam

Loam

Loam is soil composed of sand, silt, and clay in relatively even concentration . Loam soils generally contain more nutrients and humus than sandy soils, have better infiltration and drainage than silty soils, and are easier to till than clay soils...

 or silt

Silt

Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...

. It requires little or no admixture of other materials to render it suitable for the manufacture of 'stock bricks'.
Brickearth typically occurs in discontinuous spreads, about 2m to 4m thick, overlying chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

, Thanet Beds or London Clay

London Clay

The London Clay Formation is a marine geological formation of Ypresian age which crops out in the southeast of England. The London Clay is well known for the fossils it contains. The fossils from the Lower Eocene indicate a moderately warm climate, the flora being tropical or subtropical...

. There are extensive brickearth deposits in Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, particularly on the North Downs

North Downs

The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. The North Downs lie within two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty , the Surrey Hills and the Kent Downs...

 dip slope and on the Hoo peninsula

Hoo Peninsula

The Hoo Peninsula is a peninsula in England separating the estuaries of the rivers Thames and Medway. It is dominated by a line of sand and clay hills, surrounded by an extensive area of marshland composed of alluvial silt. The name Hoo is the Old English word for spur of land.-History:The Romans...

, sections of the Medway

Medway

Medway is a conurbation and unitary authority in South East England. The Unitary Authority was formed in 1998 when the City of Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with Gillingham Borough Council and part of Kent County Council to form Medway Council, a unitary authority independent of Kent County...

 and Stour

Stour

Stour may refer to:* HMS Stour, a Royal Navy River-class destroyer purchased in 1909.* Stour-class destroyer, the sub-class of Royal Navy destroyers of which HMS Stour was the lead ship.-See also:* East Stour...

 valleys. The mineral content of brickearth is critical for brickmaking and requires precise proportions of chalk

Chalk

Chalk is a soft, white, porous sedimentary rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite plates shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores....

, clay

Clay

Clay is a general term including many combinations of one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are mostly composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure.- Formation :Clay minerals...

, and iron

Iron

Iron is a chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. It is a metal in the first transition series. It is the most common element forming the planet Earth as a whole, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most common element in the Earth's crust...

.

In 1986 there were 4 active stock brick works in Kent, at Otterham Quay, Funton, Murston

Murston

Murston is a suburb of Sittingbourne in Kent, England....

 and Ospringe

Ospringe

Ospringe is a village and civil parish in the English county of Kent. It has a population of 715. Located south of Faversham, Ospringe forms part of the Borough of Swale...

.

In Chichester

Chichester

Chichester is a cathedral city in West Sussex, within the historic County of Sussex, South-East England. It has a long history as a settlement; its Roman past and its subsequent importance in Anglo-Saxon times are only its beginnings...

, the brickearth is flinty brown silty clay up to five metres thick, which occurs on the coastal plain. The brickearth is unfossiliferous but occasionally yields man-made flint implements.