HOMES EXTRA
BRICK BRICK by
T
he humble brick has been around for several millennia. Originally made from sun dried clay, then kiln-fired clay, they’re long lasting and extremely strong. Bricks are laid in courses, bound together by mortar to produce brickwork in a style of patterns or bonds. Some are structural, some are decorative and the range of names is extensive: Flemish, Monk, Sussex, Basket Weave and Herringbone to name but a handful. Look up at old brick buildings and inlaid in the brickwork, the date of construction, or the name of the local brickworks is often clear to see. The brickwork industry existed across the county, in towns and villages making bricks with local clay, creating subtle, uniquely coloured products that varied from one manufacturer to another. Bricks have their own lexicography; the ends are
The brick may not appear to amount to much, but just as DNA forms the building blocks of life, the brick can be described as a form of DNA integral to buildings and social history, as Robert Veitch explains Battersea Power Station
known as Headers, Beds form the top and bottom faces, and Stretchers are the sides. The depressions in the Beds are known as Frogs. Early bricks were of a size to be conveniently held in one hand, with the mortar trowel held in the other. As a rough guide the length is double the width, or thereabouts. The mortar that binds brickwork these days may be made of sand and cement, but the lime mortar of the past has its own foundations in the local landscape. The pockmarks of old chalk pits scar the Sussex downland. Quarried chalk
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