Agriculture Reference
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with the same narrow joints. The stringcourse stops short of the lightly rubbed
corners. The entrances of both the land and riverside of Carter's Grove are
marked by pedimented frontispieces whose gauged bricks [rubbers] are rubbed
a deep red and whose thin putty joints were covered with a red wash. By the time
of the Revolution (1763-76), the contrast coloring at Carter's Grove was begin-
ning to loose favor. Fewer patrons chose to augment their buildings with gauged
and rubbed string courses, watertables and frontispieces, though rubbed arches
remained a staple of the bricklayer's art through the second or third decade of
the nineteenth century.
Figure 114
A gauged frontispiece
by David Minitree,
at Carter's Grove,
Williamsburg, Virginia,
1751-53. (Courtesy of
Jason Whitehead)
There were times when people wished to have gauged enrichments on their
property but were without rubbing bricks and so resorted to an aesthetic deceit
to create the impression of gauged work, as Robin Lucas (1997, 156) explains:
Colonial buildings sometimes lacked the moulded and cut bricks [rubbers]
required to complete a composition: at Brick House Farm or the Zaccheus
