Blackheath Brick Stretcher

Bricks are one of the most common materials in architecture and construction. With recorded uses dating back over 9000 years, brick traces its origins to mud and straw adobe blocks as found in Africa, southern Asian and southern American regions where hot, dry climates quickly dried and cured the earth bricks naturally in the heat. Clay bricks were used extensively throughout the Roman Empire thanks to the Romans’ invention of the mobile kiln, an innovation on the kiln used by ancient Egyptian builders to fire clay mixtures when placed in moulds, which enabled brick manufacture across Rome’s territories, using an increased range of local clay and soil compositions. Bricks were then regularly used in Europe from around the 12th century, when northern European countries traded materials, knowledge and design ideologies with Italy during the Gothic and Renaissance eras, spreading the use of Roman designs and construction methods, until dying out for a period due to bricks’ inability to recreate the intricate shapes of ornament and decoration associated with these styles. The exploration of new forms and manufacturing methods seen a return to popularity, combined with their increasingly popular reputation as a replacement to timber in densely populated cities in the 17th century, particularly London, due to their far superior fire retarding properties, following a spate of particularly serious, destructive urban fires that ripped through older timber building stock. Other cities followed suit during the 18th century industrial revolution as bricks proved a hardy, enduring, cost effective, simple to construct, reliable, impervious, consistently dimensioned building unit protecting against damp air and wet ground conditions, especially after the invention of fast, mass manufacturing techniques. Brick was then popularised in northern America and other English, Belgian, Dutch, French, Spanish and Portuguese territories, through early émigrés taking their masonry skills abroad. They remain popular due to their readily available raw materials, simple manufacture, low cost, ease of maintenance, basic-skilled assembly and attractive variety of colours, textures and finishes. Modern brick can be cut to standard sizes to form a versatile, durable building product, or specially manufactured to suit a variety of angles, curves and unique shapes for decorative purposes on organic forms. Hard-wearing and with excellent structural and thermal properties, they are a popular, efficient, human-scaled material for paving, load-bearing walls, cladding systems, landscaping and interior decorative walls, while a variety of finishes and palettes within the one product can create rustic, weathered, industrial aesthetics increasingly popular in bespoke, contemporary domestic, hospitality and workplace environments; practical, perfunctory settings; or decorative façades. Preferred for their domestic, human scale, bricks are one of the easiest construction materials to handle and build with when combined and laid with cementitious mortars. They are well suited to domestic, care, primary education and community building types in all climatic settings provided they are manufactured correctly and to the right specifications with respect to their locale. Blackheath brick is a mixture of buff, Blundell and charred bricks of varying colour and a variety of textured finishes. Many of the bricks feature charcoal marks across their faces, with base colours ranging from pastel red-browns to greys, silvers and sand with a variety of smooth and rustic finishes. The distinctive, striking charcoal marks across otherwise light, neutral toned backgrounds are reminiscent of veins in marble, while the variety and contrast of buff shades create a striking and dynamic texture for load bearing walls, cladding or landscaped elements. The variety of earthy, neutral tones allow the Blackheath brick to compliment natural stone, concrete, and metals. Preferred for their domestic, human scale, bricks are one of the easiest construction materials to handle and build with and are well suited to domestic, care, primary education and community building types. Varying between rustic and smooth finishes, Blackheath can be used in a range of external and internal components, including building cladding for facades, walls, and landscaping elements, or for internal decoration and fireplaces: Finishes range from smooth to drag-faced; a finish style similar in formation and properties to regular bricks, but are scraped before the heating process to create a unique face finish – the colour and size of drag-faced bricks can vary depending on mineral combinations and factory manufacturing methods – and creased; so-called due to the unique finish on the brick face, which is specially applied to brick clay before the heating process – the resulting texture on an otherwise smooth surface strikes a balance between contemporary intrigue and industrial, aged, weathered aesthetic.