Heritage consultants Godden Mackay Logan are investigating the FitzRoy Iron Works relics found during recent construction of the supermarket.

But Mr Ringer believes further investigation may be needed before any decision is made.

“Clearly [the relics] are an extension of what lies beneath Woolworths and are connected to the FitzRoy Ironworks, but no-one knows what it is,” he said.

“Before any report is made, [Aldi] should cast the net wider than Godden Mackay Logan.

“I challenge Aldi and Godden Mackay Logan to look further afield and get a second opinion, and even a third.”

Mr Ringer spent four years researching and writing “The Brickmakers 1788-2008”, a social and industrial history of Australian brickmaking.

He believes relics resembling a hearth or furnace of refractory bricks could be connected to early brickmaking.

Mr Ringer said it was logical that the bricks used to build the ironworks would have been made on site.

“We know from other evidence that industries wouldn’t cart bricks from miles around,” he said.

“You would make them on site - that’s a given. [The ironworks] would have had a brickworks.”

Mr Ringer said it would be a grave mistake to dismiss the relics as insignificant.

“Here is something that is the first in Australia, which makes it significant,” he said.

“Regardless of the fact that it’s just a pile of old bricks in the ground, that gives it significance.”

Mr Ringer said that by incorporating the relics into its development, in the same way that Woolworths had preserved relics in the Highlands Marketplace carpark, Aldi had a chance to make the discovery part of the “Aldi story”.

“Let’s try and do something before they disappear - without bankrupting Aldi,” he said.

Aldi obviously is taking it very seriously, so let’s talk about it.”