CWES Field Journal: Abandoned Clay Pits and Rudimentary Brickworks

Archive Note

This example is written from the perspective of an Explorer of the Cubed Worlds Explorers Society. It can be adapted into any world where the player wants the clay pit to feel like an archaeological discovery, ruined industry, or forgotten settlement site.

Related tutorial pages:

• Written Tutorial
• Portable Lore Integration
• Lore Theory and Color Palette
• Block Palettes, Layout, and Design
• CWES Field Journal Entry Standard

Field Journal Entry

Cubed Worlds Explorers Society
Field Journal of Explorer T. Marrow
World Name: [World Name]
Minecraft Edition and Version: [Bedrock or Java] [Version Number]
Seed Number: [Seed Number]
Primary Coordinates: [X, Y, Z]
Nearest Known Landmark: [Landmark, settlement, river, road, or archive reference]
Survey Region: Lower river terrace, eastern floodplain shelf
Subject: Abandoned clay pits and associated brickworks
Discovery Date: [In-world date or real recording date]
Weather and Light Conditions: Clear morning, low river mist, strong eastern light
Status: Preliminary record, pending full site mapping

The site was first noticed from the north bank at late morning, when the sun caught a series of pale shelves in the exposed ground. At a distance they looked natural enough: clay-gray cuts in the earth, half swallowed by grass, reeds, and young trees. On closer approach, however, the terraces proved too deliberate to be a simple river scar.

There are at least five pits in the immediate area. Three are shallow and heavily collapsed. One is filled with rainwater, reeds, and silt. The largest pit still holds its shape clearly enough to understand the original working pattern: stepped walls, narrow shelves, a worn access ramp, and a deeper central floor where water appears to have collected before draining through a small covered channel.

The clay seam remains visible along the inner faces of the terraces. Pale stone, dried clay, and compacted mud form bands across the walls. Some shelves show evidence of later repair. Others have slumped, leaving the pit with a broken, uneven shape that is probably closer to its final abandoned condition than to its original working form.

South of the main pit stands the ruin of a rudimentary brick and terracotta works. I use that word carefully. This was not a grand factory, nor the sort of mature industrial yard one finds near major trade roads. It appears to have been a practical works site: sheds, drying racks, storage, a crude kiln yard, and a small open sorting area. The remaining walls are low and fractured. Most of the roofing has failed. One chimney stump still stands, though it leans enough that no sensible mason would walk beneath it.

Several storage barrels were found inside the collapsed outer shed. Most were empty or filled with soil and leaf litter. Two contained old wooden shovels, badly dried and split, but still recognizable by their handles and flattened heads. A chest beneath the rear wall was more interesting. It held a store of hardened clay balls, several clay blocks, and a scattering of bricks that appear never to have been fired evenly.

The drying yard gives the strongest clue to the site's final days. Several dozen stacks of bricks remain laid out in the open, as though they were left to dry in the sun and never collected. Some have weathered into rounded lumps. Others are still square enough to show hand-pressed edges. A few terracotta pieces were found near the kiln wall, dull red and orange beneath the dirt.

It is difficult not to imagine the work stopping suddenly.

There are no signs of burning beyond the kiln itself. No obvious battle damage. No scattered weapons. No bodies, markers, or memorial stones. The abandonment may have been slow: a trade route moved, the river changed course, the clay seam weakened, or the workers simply left for a larger works elsewhere.

Still, one detail bothers me. The tools were not taken.

A working family does not abandon shovels, clay, blocks, and unfired bricks without cause. Even poor tools have value. Clay has value. Bricks have value. If the site was left gradually, I would expect the useful goods to be removed. Instead, the place feels paused, as though the workers meant to return after rain, illness, flood, or news from the road.

The underworks beneath the main pit are partially intact. A crawl opening near the eastern side leads to a low maintenance space. The walls are damp and heavily stained. Copper grates, green with age, cover a central drainage hole. The basin wings appear designed to move water inward toward that drain. Where the roof has not collapsed, pointed stone formations hang below the old work shelves.

This suggests a drying system: wet mud or clay-rich earth was packed above the shelves and drained slowly through stone points into the basin below. Whether the original builders understood this as craft, superstition, or simple inherited practice is impossible to say. The result, however, is clear enough. They were not merely digging clay. They were renewing it.

The brickworks nearby likely depended on these pits for local supply. Clay balls, clay blocks, bricks, and terracotta all appear in the same work zone. The presence of multiple pits implies long-term extraction, not a temporary camp. I estimate the site operated for decades, perhaps longer, before abandonment.

The age is uncertain. Based on tree growth, soil accumulation, and the weathering of exposed brick stacks, I would place abandonment several hundred years ago. That estimate may change after a full survey.

For now, I recommend the following:

1. Map all five clay pits before further collapse.
2. Stabilize the standing chimney stump or mark it unsafe.
3. Recover sample bricks from the drying yard.
4. Record the chest contents before removal.
5. Inspect the drainage basin only with proper support.
6. Search downstream for signs of a matching settlement, dock, or road.

If the associated settlement can be found, this clayworks may help date the earliest permanent building activity in the region. If no settlement remains, then the pits themselves may be the record: a small industry carved into the riverbank, worked by hands whose names are gone, and abandoned with its last bricks still drying in the sun.

Adaptation Notes for Builders

Use this example when you want your clay pit to feel discovered rather than newly built.

Good visual details:

• Collapsed terraces.
• Waterlogged pit floor.
• Mossy underworks.
• Broken copper grates.
• Old shovels in barrels or item frames.
• Chests with clay balls, clay blocks, bricks, and terracotta.
• Several stacks of sun-drying bricks left in the yard.
• A ruined kiln or chimney.
• Overgrown road or dock nearby.

Good story hooks:

• Why were the tools left behind?
• Did the river flood the site?
• Did the trade road move?
• Was the clayworks part of a lost settlement?
• Did another brickworks replace it?
• Are the old pits still usable if repaired?