Chandos Glass Cone
The Chandos Glass Cone in Bridgwater, Somerset, England, was built in 1725 as a brick kiln for a glassworks. It is now a scheduled ancient monument. Glassmaking lasted only a short time before the site was converted to pottery, bricks and tiles, which continued until 1939. Most of the cone was demolished in 1943, but the bottom 2.4 metres (7 ft 10 in) survive.
The cone was built by James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos, as part of an industrial development near the River Parrett to help transport materials from his works at Stourbridge. Local sand was used. Glassmaking failed early, and the business struggled; the Duke’s agents were bankrupted in 1728. Glassmaking stopped in 1734, and after a period as an iron foundry, the cone became a pottery works with three kilns inside.
From 1827 to 1939, bricks and tiles were made alongside pottery. In the 1870s a railway siding and the Telescopic Bridge were built to link the works. The kiln last operated in 1939, and most of the structure was demolished in 1943 after the top bricks spread. Bricks from the cone were reused to build RAF Merryfield and RAF Weston Zoyland runways. Excavations in the 1970s uncovered pottery and glass, some of which is on display at Blake Museum in Bridgwater. In 2007 a plan was proposed to rebuild the cone in glass and steel as a visitor attraction. The cone originally stood 33 metres tall and 75 feet (about 23 metres) wide at the base, but the remaining historic fragment is now 2.4 metres high. It was designed with a bottle-like taper to help airflow through the structure.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 13:35 (CET).