underwood cut on the estate in the late 18th century was sold to the Foxley family of Wicken Hurst, where they had a brick-kiln. (fn. 324) The Foxleys also supplied bricks and lime to the estate for repairs. (fn. 325) The kiln was already in existence in 1717, when the tenant was Elizabeth Green, who also had a farm of 63 acres on the estate. (fn. 326) Twenty years later the kiln and 8 a. of land were in the hands of John Foxley, (fn. 327) who described himself as a farmer and brickmaker of Wicken Hurst in his will of 1769. (fn. 328) His widow Anne continued the business until 1778, when she was succeeded by her son Thomas. (fn. 329) He in turn died in 1797, when he described himself merely as a farmer, (fn. 330) and this may have marked the end of brickmaking on the estate. His widow Elizabeth kept the farm at Wicken Hurst until 1817 and left the parish two years later, (fn. 331) but there is no evidence that the brickkiln was still at work in that period. In the 19th century the Foxleys made bricks elsewhere in the district. (fn. 332)
Gravel has presumably been extracted on a small scale over a long period from pits near the river. Wicken was among the parishes in which quarries were opened (or enlarged) in the late 1950s to provide materials for the building of the M1 through the county. (fn. 333)
Other trades and crafts.
Wicken had only a handful of tradesmen or retailers during the century and a half in which the Mordaunts and Douglas-Pennants owned the estate, presumably relying for most services on the much bigger, open village of Deanshanger. (fn. 334) A blacksmith is listed in directories from 1847 to 1940, together with a shoemaker until the end of the 19th century. There were three shopkeepers in the village in 1869, (fn. 335) and four or five from the 1870s until the First World War. (fn. 336) In the early 1920s there were still two greengrocers and a butcher, (fn. 337) but by 1930 only the butcher was left, plus a general store at the post office, which remained the position until the start of the Se