Rumleigh Brickworks were owned by Thomas Westlake & Company, Brick & Tile Makers. They had Brick & Fire Clay Works at Bealswood, near the Weir Head and at Calstock Town, and large Brick & Arsenic manufacturies at Rumleigh. They were very large employers of labour in the area. Their bricks were in large demand for government buildings and fortifications.
Between 1880 and 1902 the Calstock/Callington area was producing 50% of the world's arsenic requirements from plants at Greenhill, Coombe and Rumleigh.
From an internet advert fpr a map for sale. Bere Ferrers PLAN OF RUMLEIGH BRICK FIELDS Showing Encroachments of Arsenical Works Built by Mr Thos. Westlake. 1885. Surveyed by R. Walters Land and Mining Surveyor. Tavistock August 1885. Manuscript plan in ink and full colour on cartridge paper, size 21" x 28", scale 1 chain to an inch. Border, decorative compass rose, scale bar. Shows River Tamar, sluice, furnaces, refining house, stack, smithy, flues, brick kiln, hedges, hedges destroyed, land occupied by Mr Martin. Reference table with coloured key showing leases, Arsenical Works encroaching on land leased for Brick Making, etc. Small piece torn away top right affecting corner of border. Folds, small repaired tear at one fold, two small splits in paper at another. Together with a small coloured basic sketch plan 'Land proposed to be leased as Rumleigh Brickfield 1879'. 1880. £95.00
Opposite Okeltor today you will see the lightning-struck chimney of Rumleigh brickworks and the leaning stack of Gawton's arsenic flue.