Bursledon Brickworks roof set to be saved after funding

The works will safeguard the rare kiln from further deterioration

Urgent repair work to save a 19th Century brickworks is set to be carried out.

Bursledon Brickworks Museum in Hampshire is the UK's last Victorian steam-driven site of its kind.

A £246,000 grant from Historic England will pay for repair work to its roof in order to protect the kiln and remove it from the "at risk" register.

Museum director Carolyne Haynes said it would give the attraction a "new lease of life".

"We have been watching the old roof rapidly deteriorate over the last 10 years and hoping we would be able to replace it before it finally failed," she said.

The brickworks was one of the biggest in the region

Bursledon Brickworks was founded in 1897 by the Ashby family who were successful builders merchants in Southampton.

The clay used to make the bricks was originally dug by hand in pits close to the buildings.

By the 1930s it was turning out more than 20 million bricks a year.

The site closed in 1974 and was later restored by volunteers to become a museum dedicated to the region's industrial heritage.

Marion Brinton, from Historic England, said: ''The kiln is a key element of the museum. If it had become unsafe, or even lost through decay, the whole future of the museum could have been in jeopardy."