Thornleigh Brickpit Stadium

Features

• Four championship size basketball courts (including one show court with seating for 300 people)
• Court markings for netball (3 courts), volleyball (3 courts) and badminton (8 courts)
• Can host the majority of indoor sports
• Fully serviced kiosk with seating for 50 people
• Outdoor balcony area
• 130 undercover car parking spaces
• Disabled access to stadium and lift
• Change room facilities with showers
• Fully equipped first aid room
• Meeting room and training room facilities.

Court Availability

Please check court availability for the coming week here.

Stadium activities

A wide variety of sports and activities are held at the Thornleigh Brickpit Sports Stadium every week.

Council provides this list for information only and does not endorse any of these programs.

Basketball
Competitions run for all ages each weekday evening as well as Sunday nights.
Contact: Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Basketball Association, (02) 9980 6255.

Volleyball
Competitions for senior teams run on Wednesday evenings.
Contact: Sydney North Volleyball, 1300 768 655.

Table tennis
Seniors and Social play - Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning 9:30am to 12:30pm
Competition and Social play - Friday night 7:30pm to 10:30pm
Contact: Sydney Upper North Shore (SUNS) Table Tennis Association 0416 113 155.

SoccaJoeys 
Kid’s Soccer Classes. Australia’s most popular kid’s soccer classes for children aged 2.5-11 years.
Contact: SoccaJoeys, 1300 781 735.

History

The land around Thornleigh was first settled in approximately 1816 by convict timber getters who provided timber for Governor Macquarie’s building schemes. During this initial period of settlement, no buildings were built of brick because timber was still in good supply. The first known brick building was Hornsby Public School built in 1873, with bricks made at Enfield.

More brick structures were built during 1884 along the Homebush to Waratah railway line. As more new villages opened along the train lines, bricks were needed for station buildings, over bridges and culverts.

The 1900 electoral roll of Thornleigh revealed that 35 per cent of the voters were labourers. Consequently, when it was announced in late 1901 that a brick manufacturing works was to start operations at Thornleigh, the announcement was greeted with much enthusiasm.

The National Brickworks started at Thornleigh in 1901, with open kilns which fired bricks made of clay dug from a pit on the site. In June 1903, the new sixteen chamber kiln and stack were complete, and the kiln was opened when the builder’s daughter laid the final brick on the top of its 45m high chimney stack. It had a weekly output of 140,000 bricks.

In 1907, a second kiln was completed and the brickpit had reached a depth of 20m. Employees originally lived on site in company housing, but as the pit expanded, these houses had to be removed.

In the 1960s the brickworks were refitted, with steel structures replacing wooden ones, and gas was used to fire the kilns replacing coal. The brickpit had grown to more than 200m wide and 90m deep and shale was running short. The last bricks were fired in 1975 and the works were closed down.

By 1978, plans were announced to turn the pit into a rubbish tip. A year later, demolition commenced, with the stacks being dynamited to the delight of spectators. In 1981, the pit was converted to a landfill site, which closed in 1985. Gas burners were installed to burn off the methane gas generated by the rotting garbage, and Brickpit Park was opened on the site in 2006.

Fast forward 20 years, and Brickpit Stadium today is one of the major indoor sports stadiums within Hornsby Shire. Home to basketball, volleyball, table tennis and even a bridge club, the Brickpit hosts over 2,300 groups of residents of all ages a year. From toddlers trying soccer for the first time to seniors playing table tennis and local schools, it plays an important role in the lives of the whole community.