Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Newcomb House in Pleasant Valley, Dutchess County, New York, raised about 1760,
painted timber balks above the windows take the place of arch bricks or voussoirs.
The popularity of gauged work, according to Dr. Lounsbury (2006), begins to
die out in America during the last fifteen years of the eighteenth century, accord-
ing to and after the Revolution (1784) there are only a few examples. Rubbed
work does not flourish past the first decade of the nineteenth century, though
there is still some examples of occasional use for 'jack' arches, window jambs
and quoins. The cut-moulded cornice to the Boiler House building (1855) at
the old railway depot in Savannah, Georgia, built of local bricks believed to have
been made on the former McAlpin family plantation, utilising river mud, is a
good example of this later cut and rubbed work in America (Clark, 2006).
Summary
The Georgian period was a consolidation of the fine gauged brickwork achieved
in the late seventeenth century, though its use became less adventurous as
the neo-classical architects, rather than the master bricklayers, designed the
features. After the Great Fire the return of country bricklayers to their native
shires had allowed their assimilated skills and knowledge of gauged work to
spread out beyond the confines of London and its craftsmen. This facilitated all
improvement in national brickmaking and bricklaying and it witnessed quality
brickwork with fine gauged work dressings as an almost ubiquitous feature of
every brick-built Georgian town and country properties.
Case Study: Warfield House, Warfield,
Berkshire, England
By Mr Derren D'Archambaud, Craftsman Bricklayer, Proprietor 'DGD Limited'.
Warfield House is a mid-eighteenth century three-storey brick-built large coun-
try house. The brickwork of this Grade II listed building is of historical and
social importance, constructed with orange-red bricks laid in Flemish bond
with gauged brick enrichments, with more recent additions and alterations.
All the external brickwork had been severely damaged by aggressive sand
blasting to remove earlier paintwork. This had unfortunately destroyed the
face of the bricks. There were large areas of plastic repairs to individual bricks
and widespread use of inappropriate cement:sand mortar re-pointing. All the
gauged enrichments were seriously damaged as a result of the sand blasting,
and on one elevation some enrichments had been removed. The result of all
of this was that the disfigured brick facades were left vulnerable to further dam-
age. It was clear that in order to preserve the building substantial restoration to
the external fabric was needed.
