Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
corners and creating sharp arrises; this not only speeded up brick moulding
but also allowed for deeper moulds to be used. It had many other benefits too:
being a clay saving device, enabled more efficient drying and firing, made the
brick lighter and assisted in giving the mortar a better grip to the brick; pro-
viding it was laid 'frog up' and thus properly filled. Some bricks from the late
seventeenth century onwards have been found to have a shallow recess, but, as
Harley (1974, 80) suggests:
…it was not until about 1690 that a depression was deliberately produced, at first as
a slot scooped out by the finger of the brickmaker after he had moulded the brick.
The recess on a de-moulded brick is generally termed the 'frog', though terms
such as 'kick' and 'sinking' are less commonly used also. The origin of the
term frog is lost in antiquity, although one idea is its similarity to the cleft in
a horse's hoof. A sight familiar in the pug mill area of the brickyard, and itself
called the frog (Lynch, 1994, 10). Time spent researching in the Netherlands,
however, has given the author another and more likely origin to the term. The
Dutch word for frog is 'Kikker', very close to our term for the raised block,
or 'Kick', that creates the frog in the brick, so it seems quite possible that the
English term originally comes from a contracted translation of the Dutch.
At the beginning of this period, and later in the eighteenth century, red
brick was fashionable for gauged work. Nicholson (1823, 344) observes:
…the Red Bricks …are made of a particular earth, well wrought, and little injured
by mixtures; and they are used in fine work, in ornaments over windows… These
are frequently cut or ground down to a perfect evenness, and sometimes set in
putty instead of mortar; and thus set they make a very beautiful appearance.
One particular rubbing brick is deemed worthy of naming by Nicholson for its
excellence (1823, 344-5):
… is the Hedgerly Brick: it is made at a village of that name, of the famous earth
called Hedgerly loam… of a yellow-reddish colour, and very harsh to the touch,
containing a great quantity of sand….
Nicholson urges caution, however, regarding selecting bricks for rubbers, in
words that still apply today:
The Red Cutting Brick, or fine red, is the finest of all bricks. In some places that
are not at all acquainted with this; in others, they confound it with the red stock,
and use that for it….
The Red and Gray Stock are frequently put in gauged arches, and one as well as
the other set in putty instead of mortar: this is an expensive work but it answers
