Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The Huis Van Merris (House of Merris) in Poperinge also dates from the
eighteenth century and is constructed in the same style of Louis XVI. Below
the ground floor window cill height the brickwork below plinth level is of
standard buff-coloured bricks laid with bed joints averaging 10 mm. Above this
the entire façade is of fine gauged work with cut-moulded bases to the large
ashlared pilasters, architraves to the openings and
in situ
carved swags to richly
detailed aprons. This truly emphasises the success of constructing entire clas-
sical façades in refined gauged work, that becomes one homogenous mass
instead of a series of busy individual bricks, allowing the architectural enrich-
ments to be displayed without visual disturbance.
In studying post-fired worked brickwork across much of Flanders, there is a sin-
gular revealing aspect to almost all of the historic Flemish 'bewerkte baksteenen',
and particularly where the quality is virtually gauged brickwork; that is seen
from the early sixteenth century onwards. The overall bonding pattern is fre-
quently treated more like ashlar stonework, rather than the disciplined and rule-
abiding manner normally associated with good brickwork. This is almost certainly
an indication of those taught as stonemasons being involved in its construction.
The skills of gauged work were very much brought to the fore in the years
following the Great War and there are some wonderful examples to be seen on
shell-damaged or entirely re-built properties, faithful to the original designs,
in towns like Veurne and particularly in Ypres (Ipers). Today these skills are
still formally taught to some bricklayer/masons for working on brick buildings
needing repair or restoration.
Bricklayers and Brickmasons in England
During the late medieval period there was no distinction made between struc-
ture and decoration on masonry and authorship of the buildings was deemed
unimportant. Although designing required a level of intellect and its decoration
was seen as a subsidiary skill, designs were usually the collaborative effort of the
patron, master mason and builder, though only the patron was truly recognised.
In England, during the fifteenth century, there was a period when stonework
became unfashionable and numerous masons readily moved from stone to
brickwork. That in fifteenth-century England some bricklayers worked also as
masons is undisputed, being termed collectively 'Breekmasons' (Moore, 1991,
232-3):
Building accounts including both brick and stone construction often show the
interchangeability of brick and stone layers. At Eton, although there were 13 men
in 1444-46 who were paid only as bricklayers, there were also 18 stonelayers of
whom ten worked partly as bricklayers…at Kirby Muxloe some of the most skilled
bricklayers were paid in May-July 1482 as 'roughmasons'.
