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Many of the old brick workings were filled in with urban rubbish.

This reference to a horse drowning is the earliest reference I have found of urban rubbish being "fly-tipped" in abandoned brick pits - and with 15 foot of water the pit was clearly pretty large.

In 1860 the Abbey Burial Board hoped to be able to dig holes in a former brick ground - but the plan for a cemetery there never went ahead.

I am not certain when the area became the tip for the City's waste collection, but at one stage my grandfather, Harry Reynolds, held the contract for the work.

Selected News Items, etc.

It is clear that as early as 1846 the disused pits on the Heath were used by the residents of St Albans for fly-tipping:

 

HORSE DROWNED. - On Thursday last, as the servant of Mr. Langridge, grocer, St Albans, was unloading a cart containing old tins and rubbish, by the side of a deep clay pit on Bernards Heat, the noise made by the rattling of the tins frightened the horse, which backed into the pit, and was precipitated to the bottom in about 15 feet depth of water, where the animal was drowned, but the man fortunately escaped, and the cart was recovered.

Hertford Mercury & Reformer, 23 May 1846

In 1860 a suggestion was made, and quickly dropped that the area of long abandoned brick pits south of Harpenden Road should be used to solve the problem of where to dispose of bodies now that the area around the Abbey was overcrowed.

The Abbey Burial Board.—This most unjust measure towards the Abbey parish, has met with the opposition it merited from the owners of land in the vicinity for there are but very few who will concede the proposal of having a portion of their estate converted into a cemetery. The last and most certain resource of the Board's applications was to Earl Spencer tor that portion of Bernard’s Heath, on the left of the road tp Harpenden. formerly used as a brick ground But as soon as the project of a burial ground in that part became known, a memorial, signed by very respectable ratepayers of St. Peter's and Sandridge parishes, in opposition to the application was forwarded to his Lordship, who came over on on Saturday last to inspect the ground, and has since determined not to allow any part the Heath to be made, use of tor such a purpose.

Herts Guardian, 17th November, 1860