Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Some hewers could be very disciplined and seek to always leave their axe strokes
neat and parallel to one another, whereas another could leave cavalier axing
marks with their particular hewing technique. Study of a number of cut and
rubbed ashlared and moulded enrichments on several English medieval and
Tudor brick buildings, has revealed a common and attractive finishing tech-
nique. For example, bricks axed for quoins and splayed reveals and not rubbed
smooth, reveal how some hewers frequently dressed the faces of the brick diag-
onally; generally from top left to bottom right in a series of parallel strokes.
These angles vary, presumably due to individual craftsmanship, from 45º and
60º (approximately) in a manner similar to what masons term 'boasted ashlar'
work. This axing patterning can clearly be seen in Nathaniel Lloyd's photo-
graph (1925, 334) of a gable detail to oversail an upper storey, on a late
sixteenth-century property in Elham (Kent). The top two course of bricks,
directly below a course of ovolo stretchers, are axed diagonally and laid with
the axe strokes in opposing directions on each course for extra aesthetic effect.
This style of axing was also used for simple flat shapes, such as 'cants' used
for reveals, or for voussoirs in arches; the diagonal axing marks providing evi-
dence of the brick being dressed first before being cut to the wedge-shape
of the arch voussoir in a two- or even three-stage cutting process. With more
ornate mouldings, possessing concave or convex curves, the techniques were
modified. If it was practical to use the brick axe throughout shaping, then it
was worked so as to cut parallel to the run of the moulding, as in the Bridewell
chimney brick, where the axe strokes follow the length of the roll or rope
moulding (Fig. 22).
Where access with the brick axe was possible, though not to hew, or chop, with
it, then it was used in a 'paring' manner similar to a carpenter's use of a wood
chisel to gouge out the desired profile. The cut and rubbed work at Someries
Castle, near Luton (Bedfordshire) and Kirby Muxloe Castle (Leicestershire)
(see Case Studies Kirby Muxloe) are excellent examples of the use of these axing
techniques. Someries Castle, or as the locals call it, 'Someries', is the ruins of
a once sumptuous courtyard house, which as Smith (2005, 2-5) relates, '…was
started by John Lord Wenlock (
c
.1390-1471), almost certainly in or about 1448'.
Building work was, however, interrupted and then resumed again around 1460
but was left unfinished at Wenlock's death at the Battle of Tewkesbury, in 1471,
during the 'Wars of the Roses'. The use of hewn brick for the moulded dressings
on the handsome brickwork of this building is prolific. The hewers at Someries
followed similar axing styles, in how they worked and finished their canted, con-
vex and concave cut-moulded bricks, to those of the craftsmen working at Kirby
Muxloe Castle; though the parallel axing marks at Someries are not maintained
in quite such a disciplined fashion.
The question should be asked as to why the hewers work the plain face of
a medieval or Tudor brick in the first place, when only needed for a quoin
