At the end of March 2021, we visited a dear friend in the German state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Naturally, we took the opportunity to explore a few abandoned sites in the surrounding area.
Our first destination was an abandoned brickworks, about an hour's drive from our friend's home.
The region has a long tradition of brickmaking, thanks to its rich natural clay deposits. Clay has been extracted here since as early as the beginning of the 13th century, and the brickworks itself can trace its history back to around the 16th century. Its heyday came much later, towards the end of the 19th century, when industrialisation transformed brick production on a much larger scale.
Over the decades that followed, the works grew into a sizeable industrial operation. Like many brickworks, it relied not only on the clay pits surrounding the factory, but also on a narrow-gauge field railway to move raw materials and bricks around the site. Some of the locomotives once used here survived long after the works themselves had fallen silent.
After the end of the GDR in 1990, the brickworks finally closed. In the years that followed, some parts of the site were given new uses, but most of it was simply abandoned and left to decay.
When we reached the former factory grounds, our first task was to find somewhere to park. Fortunately, this proved surprisingly easy. Parts of the surrounding area are used for recreational activities—there is even a climbing park in the nearby forest—and consequently, there are several parking areas in the vicinity.
From where we left the car, we only had to follow a small path through the woods. Before long, the remains of the old works appeared between the trees.
There were a few concrete barriers intended to prevent vehicles from entering, but there was no real fence or continuous perimeter anymore. The site had, quite literally, been left open to the forest—and to anyone willing to walk in.
The factory buildings were in a sorry state.
Some structures, including the old ring kiln, had been completely demolished, while others had only partially survived. Judging by what remained, we suspected that at least some of the old bricks had been salvaged and reused as building material elsewhere in the surrounding area. There was something strangely fitting about that: bricks that had once left this place by the millions were now becoming part of something new, while the factory that had produced them slowly disappeared.
In some places, we were slightly puzzled by the condition of the site. Certain areas looked as though someone had actually cleared them out. After I later came across photographs taken in early 2019, I began to suspect there might be an explanation.
In February 2019, a 14-year-old girl was seriously injured in an accident on the abandoned site. I suspect that the rescue operation and the investigations that followed may have resulted in certain hazardous materials being removed. In particular, asbestos-containing debris that was clearly visible in some of the older photographs was nowhere to be seen during our visit.
The further we ventured into the former works, the more obvious its decline became.
Many of the roofs had collapsed. Machinery and technical equipment had largely vanished, leaving behind little more than fragments of the industrial infrastructure. Walls stood without buildings, buildings stood without roofs, and in places it was difficult to tell where the factory ended and the forest began.
Nature was steadily reclaiming everything.
Fortunately, spring had not quite arrived yet. The trees were still mostly bare and the undergrowth had not yet awakened, which made exploring the site considerably easier. A few weeks later, the same paths would probably have disappeared beneath a wall of thorny vegetation.
Despite the destruction, there were still plenty of fascinating details to discover. The remains of the old production facilities, fragments of brickwork and concrete, and the traces of a once-busy industrial complex offered occasional glimpses into what this place must have looked like when it was still operating.
Some of the surviving structures were difficult to identify with any certainty. Decades of decay, demolition and vegetation had erased much of the original layout, leaving us to piece together the function of individual buildings from whatever clues remained.
One particularly intriguing structure stood on the southernmost edge of the surviving site. Raised above the ground on a massive concrete framework, it looked almost more like a bridge than a building. At first glance, I wondered whether it might have been connected with loading or the dispatch of finished bricks.
It was only later that I learned that the structure had apparently been used as a drying shed during the later years of the brickworks. Its elevated, open construction makes considerably more sense in that context: fresh bricks needed plenty of air circulation before they could be fired. The field railway may well have played a role in moving the bricks to and from structures such as this one, although by now the tracks themselves have almost completely disappeared.
It was fascinating to stand among these remains and imagine the activity that once filled the place. Where we found weeds, fallen leaves and silence, there would once have been the constant movement of workers, machinery and small railway locomotives, with freshly moulded bricks passing through the various stages of production before eventually leaving the works.
By the time we visited, almost all of that had vanished.
Still, there were enough traces left to make the exploration worthwhile. We tried to look at everything that was still accessible, even though much of the site had already disappeared beneath the advancing vegetation and decades of neglect.
And then, towards the end of our exploration, the weather decided to make things a little more atmospheric.
A steady rain began to fall.
By that point we were already wet, a bit tired and partially covered in whatever dirt the abandoned brickworks had managed to throw at us, so to speak. So we made our way back through the trees, leaving the ruins behind us in the rain.
Another forgotten industrial site, slowly returning to the forest.
To find out more about the history and to check out all the photos from this place, click the button below.
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