Hidden House History

Medieval

The decorative potential of brickwork is on full display in this mid fifteenth-century example from Huntingdonshire. The blue ‘headers’ result from the vapours of wood-fired kilns.

Medieval - Stuart

English Bond is alternate courses of ‘stretchers’ (sides) and one row of ‘headers’ (ends). It was developed in the Low Countries, but from about 1440 it was the standard type of bond in England, lasting for 200 years (but there are some later revivals). Bricks are usually 2 inches tall.

Stuart onwards

Flemish Bond. Ironically, this is a very English technique of alternating every brick so that each end is surrounded by sides, and each side is surrounded by ends. It’s a neat and strong way of knitting the bricks together to minimise weaknesses. The earliest known example is at Kew Palace (c. 1631).

Stuart onwards

In the mid seventeenth century, cut and rubbed brickwork became popular. Architectural features were sawn, filed and smoothed into shape, creating some lively facades.

Georgian

Stock bricks were the standard type of brick for the Georgian era. These are usually 2 ½ inches tall. The yellow colour obtained from some seams of clay in eastern England made stock bricks a cheaper alternative to fashionable limestone.

Victorian

In the Victorian era, John Ruskin promoted the polychromatic facades of medieval Venice as a paragon of tasteful architecture. Victorian builders who had tired of the Regency formula embraced a wealth of colours and patterns, including terracotta.

Late-victorian +

Stretcher Bond is just that- nothing but stretchers, the result of creating cavity walls. The earliest known examples are to be found in hollow garden walls which retained heat for climbing plants. Since about 1840, when it was gradually adopted for houses, the flip side of thermal efficiency has been an era of fairly boring brickwork.