Randell and Saunders
Bath Stone of Best Quality.
Quarrymen and Stone Merchants.
of Orange-grove, Bath, Bath Stone Office, Corsham, Wiltshire.
1851 Brick, Tile and Pipe Machine. Details and drawings.[1]
1851 Great Exhibition: 'MACHINE FOR MANUFACTURE OF BRICK AND TILE WARE. Amongst the works intended for the Exhibition may be mentioned a brick machine with double screw press and perpetual cutter, adapted for making Randell and Saunders’s patent bricks for sewerage purposes, which give a drain of greater strength than the common pipe or brick sewers, at a less cost; also building bricks, and all types of tile and pipe ware. The machine occupies a space of 12 feet by 4, and can be placed under the pug mill, or the clay may thrown into it in any other way deemed desirable. The clay falls on two screws working into one another, which drive the clay out at the further end of the cylinder, giving it in its transit great compression, so that the bricks are delivered through the dies in a very firm and solid state. On leaving the dies they pass under a perpetual cutter, which works without checking the progress of the clay, severing the bricks or tiles at any required lengths, giving joints either square, angular, or any segment of plain joints or tongues and grooves, —in fact, giving the ends of the bricks or tiles the form required. Two men and one lad, with the machine working at little over one horse power, produce, it is said, 1,000 bricks per hour. On inquiry were told that to work the machine ten hours costs—
Two men, say 6s 0d
One lad 1s 0d
Two horses 8s 0d
Total cost per 10,000 bricks 15s 0d.
The same parties will exhibit a sawing machine for cutting stone from the bed. The will be shown in operation in a stone model representing one of the headings in Corsham Down Quarry : it works eight saws, which, in the original machine, are 24 feet long. By a simple arrangement each saw is allowed an action quite independent of the others, and can he worked at any angle which may required. In case of any impediment, it is arranged for either saw to stop before it is strained, and without interfering with the action of the others. This machine does the work of seventy men. When the stone is cut out into blocks it is removed by a traversing crane, worked by the same ropes which work the saw frame, and both are driven by steam power.— The Builder.'[2]
1887 Amalgamated with other stone suppliers into the Bath Stone Firms Ltd and subsequently Bath and Portland Stone Firms