A clay pit is a quarry or mine for the extraction of clay, which is generally used for manufacturing pottery, bricks or Portland cement.
The brickyard or brickworks is often located alongside the clay pit to reduce the transport costs of the raw material. These days pottery producers are often not sited near the source of their clay and usually do not own the clay deposits. The other essential raw material is fuel for firing and potteries may be located near to fuel deposits rather than the clay.
Former claypits are sometimes filled with water and used for recreational purposes such as sailing and scuba diving. The Eden Project at Bodelva near St Austell, Cornwall, UK is a major redevelopment of a former china clay pit for educational and environmental purposes.
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Famous quotes containing the words clay and/or pit:
“Protoplasm, simple or nucleated, is the formal basis of all life. It is the clay of the potter: which, bake it and paint it as he will, remains clay, separated by artifice, and not by nature from the commonest brick or sun-dried clod.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)
“For tamed and shabby tigers
And dancing dogs and bears,
And wretched, blind pit ponies
And little hunted hares.”
—Ralph Hodgson (c. 1871–1962)