Cowcroft Brickworks
IndustrialCommercialInert
Cowcroft Brickworks is a historic (closed) landfill site recorded by the Environment Agency near Chesham, Buckinghamshire. It received industrial, commercial and inert waste between 1976 and 1989, covering about 3.8 hectares. Reference EAHLD12457, October 2025 data revision.
Full record
| EA reference | EAHLD12457 |
|---|---|
| Site name | Cowcroft Brickworks |
| Address | Ley Hill, Chesham, Buckinghamshire |
| Site operator | Not recorded |
| Licence holder | Hales Containers Limited |
| Licence issued | 24 June 1977 |
| Licence surrendered | 14 November 1989 |
| First waste input | 1 July 1976 |
| Last waste input | 4 August 1989 |
| Area | 3.8 ha |
| Gas control | Not recorded |
| Leachate containment | Not recorded |
| Licensed site | Yes |
| EA area | North East TH |
| Grid reference | 498600, 201600 |
Source: Environment Agency Historic Landfill Sites dataset, October 2025 revision.
Boundary map
What these waste types mean
- Industrial:
- factory and process waste. Contents vary widely — some benign, some not; the site's operator and era are the clues.
- Commercial:
- waste from shops and offices — paper, packaging, food. Similar profile to household waste, usually less of it.
- Inert:
- builder's rubble, subsoil, concrete, brick. Doesn't decompose or generate gas; the lowest-concern category.
Other historic landfill sites nearby
- Spencers HoleInert
- Cowcroft BrickworksIndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
- Cowcroft BrickworksIndustrialCommercialInert
- Cowcroft BrickworksIndustrialInert
- Cowcroft BrickworksIndustrialCommercial
- Meadhams Farm No.1IndustrialHouseholdCommercialInert
What this data does — and doesn't — cover
- Licensed-era records only. Waste licensing began in 1974. Older tips — especially small pre-war ones — are incompletely recorded, so absence from this data does not mean no landfill ever existed here.
- Not the contaminated-land register. Councils hold a separate register of land determined as contaminated. A historic landfill entry is not a contamination determination, and vice versa.
- Boundaries are indicative. Digitised at 1:10,000 scale; some are buffers around a point rather than surveyed edges.
- Not a substitute for a formal environmental search. If you're buying, your conveyancer's environmental search checks this and several other sources.
EA Historic Landfill dataset, October 2025 revision. More on the methodology page.