Description:The photograph shows a section of the marl pit belonging to the Trent Vale Brick & Tile Co. This is a view from the Rookery Lane area. The pit yielded Etruria Marl, a brick clay, usually extracted by open cast mining, used to make red bricks and tiles and the very strong "Staffordshire Blue" brick. Staffordshire Blue bricks were commonly used in railway, canal road bridges all over the UK. The pit later became part the site for Michelin Tyre Company.
To the extreme right is the site of a Roman pottery kiln dating from the first and second centuries AD. Roman pottery was discovered during marl digging in the 1920s and 1930s. The site was excavated in the 1950s and revealed kilns, ditches and pottery.