Description of Historic Place

The Stickwood Brickyard and Wetlands is located at 642 Srigley Street, in the Town of Newmarket, which is located in the Regional Municipality of York. The Stickwood Brickyard and Wetlands was a successful brickyard from 1867 to 1917, which served the local need for masonry.

The Stickwood Brickyard and Wetlands has been designated for its historical significance by the Town of Newmarket By-law number 2008-57.

Heritage Value

The Stickwood Brickyard and Wetlands was a successful brickyard from 1867 to 1917, which served the local need for masonry. These bricks were utilized in the construction of many buildings located on Main Street, in the Town of Newmarket, and the surrounding area. The property is of ecological importance as well, as it is one of the few wetlands remaining in the Town of Newmarket. Over fifty plant types thrive in this wetland, including one locally rare plant species in York Region.

Isaac Stickwood, with his wife and family immigrated from Cambridgeshire, England to Albany, New York, in 1857. Later they migrated to Toronto, Ontario where Isaac worked in the Davisville Brickyard. Early in the 1860s they moved to Newmarket and began making bricks near Lundy's Lane. When they acquired the property located along Srigley Street, in 1867, they began extracting clay from the Eastern portion of the lot and built their kilns for firing the brick in the valley of the Gorham Creek.

William Stickwood, the eldest son, took over from his father about 1871, and operated the brickworks until 1886, when he left and bought a farm in Bogarttown, later called Fernbank Farms. For a period of about four years the brickyard was rented to Tom Turner until Charles Stickwood took it over and continued the operation. The decision to cease operating was made in 1917, when wood for burning and firing the brick became scarce and expensive.

After particularly disastrous fires had destroyed much of the Main Street in Newmarket, in the 1860s and 1870s, the Town Council decreed, through a By-law, that future buildings were to be constructed of brick. The masonry that was produced from the Stickwood Brickyard and Wetlands significantly contributed to the construction of many of the local buildings, located on Main Street and in the surrounding area.

The Bogart Creek, a tributary of the Holland River, flows through the low lying western boundary of the property and is subject to flooding. Another tributary cuts diagonally across the property and joins the Bogart Creek. After Hurricane Hazel, in 1954, future building development was halted as most of the area became under the control of the Lake Simcoe Regional Conservation Authority.

On the higher ground, closer to the northern boundary limit, there is a small grove of self propagating walnut trees and three bur (white) oak trees that are between 150 to 200 years old. The wetlands also provide for a amphibian breeding habitat, support a locally rare plant species, and sustains fish spawning and a nursery habitat, in the spring. This parcel of land is one of the few wetlands in the town of Newmarket.

Sources: Town of Newmarket heritage designation By-law 2008-57; Heritage Newmarket file: Stickwood Brickyard and Wetlands.

Character-Defining Elements

The character defining elements which illustrate the heritage value of the Stickwood Brickyard and Wetlands include its:
- location within the Town of Newmarket
- fifty plants types which thrive in this wetland
- one locally rare plant species
- self propagating grove of walnut trees
- three, 150 to 200 years old, bur (white) oak trees