History Of Roofing Tiles

This is a view from Old Roofing tile factory situated at Thrichur district Kerala.

According to Encyclopedia Britanica Tile is “a thin, flat slab, usually of burnt clay, glazed or unglazed, used either structurally or decoratively in building”

Tile industry embraces a wide variety of terracotta clay products. Tiles used for roofing purpose are generally known as roofing tiles.

It was in the year 1865 that the first tile making industry established in India at Mangalore by the Basel Mission.

Tile industry is one of the traditional industries of Kerala. The first tile factory was established at Calicut in 1873. The first tile factory in the erstwhile Cochin State was established by Chakola Kunju Vareed Davasy in 1900 at Manali in the present Trichur district.

Their working was almost on a cottage industry basis, employing only hand presses and small pug mills often run by
bullocks. These factories did not possess much of the tile making machinery and their products were inferior to the older factories at Feroke and Quilon with higher mechanisation.