The works as you see it today is not as it was in the late 19th Century. Most of the existing site was constructed at the turn of the 20th Century and evolved from there onwards according to refinement of the techniques for making the bricks. Mining by manual endeavour lasted from around 1850 to 1914, even though the Porth Wen brick works was taken over by a German named Herr Steibel in 1906.