Gestingthorpe.
Pavement tiles and other articles were made at Gestingthorpe, in Essex, in the seventeenth century. Houghton, writing in 1693, says:—
“From my ingenious good friend, Mr. Samuel Dale, of Braintree, in Essex, I am informed, that at Gestingthorpe, in that county, are made a sort of hard yellowish bricks and pavements, called white brick, and Walpet brick, from a town in Suffolk of that name, where they were first made; they are harder and more durable than common red brick, and therefore much used for pavement of floors in lower rooms, and also for fire-hearths, except just where they make their fires.”