Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Clearly Pratt is analysing what constitutes a rubbing brick, how it is to be
prepared, and the cost of producing bricks ready for cutting to ashlared or
moulded enrichments on gauged brickwork. He worries about the quality of
a brick for rubbing, particularly the gritty lime inclusions, unwanted as hard
inclusions inhibit abrading, and because firing creates reactive quicklime
that can cause damaging expansive slaking action upon contact with water
(Gunther, 1928, 228). At his family home of Ryston Hall, Downham Market
(Norfolk) (1670) Pratt (Gunther, 1928, 191) instructed the brickmaker to
ensure that:
…6,000 of extraordinary brickearth to bee picked for cutting & rubbing Brickes
for ye 5 paire of Peeres.
For the earlier gauged piers at Clarendon House, London 1664 Pratt (Gunther,
1928, 155), writing on February 11th 1666 of his former instructions for the
bricklayers, wrote:
Lett such quantitie of choosen Bricks, fitt for rubbing, bee presently brought in…
for ye two paire of Peeres, & ye Front-Walles ye greate Court, & lett some small
shed bee set up for them to Rubbe in,…
Instructing the bricklayer to build gauged brick piers quickly, due to concerns
over loosing the craftsmen to harvest work, reveals how two men would be
tasked with cutting and rubbing the bricks and two craftsmen setting their pre-
pared work, Pratt (Gunther, 1928, 192) writes:
The Peeres of ye greate court to bee first done, & with all speede, & to this ende
at ye least 2 workemen & 2 rubbers to bee sett to each paire of Peeres, otherwise
Harvest comes on…
Pratt was well aware that only the very best craftsmen could be tasked with
gauged work, as in his instruction for the bricklayer at Ryston Hall, that,
'Excellent helpe to be gotten for building ye peeres' (Gunther, 1928, 191).
Regarding brick bonding, Pratt, writing in 1669, talks of either English (old
Roman) or Flemish bond, giving contemporary prices enabling a comparison of
the cost of expensive gauged work to standard facework (Gunther, 1928, 230):
This work is either set as the brick comes rough from the kiln and by London
workmen in houses wrought at 30/- per rod at the lowest, to 33/-, counted a
rate indifference, and in garden walls at 25/-. Or when the brick is grinded; and
gauged on all sides, save only that which lies to the brick behind it, at between
45/- at the cheapest, to 50/-.
