Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The aesthetic choice as to whether to leave axe, saw, or drag, strokes visible
on the brick face or rub smooth (more easy with low-fired historic bricks than
their modern counterparts) is (as it was in the past) down to time, finance, the
final viewing position and level of craftsmanship.
The significance of the brick axe to the Tudor city bricklayer is evident by
studying the design of the coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Tylers and
Bricklayers; granted the first of their four Royal Charters by Queen Elizabeth I
on the 3rd August 1568 (Bell, 1938, 18). Though as Smith (2003, 5) states the
company: '…traced its ancestry back to the time of Richard II (1367-1400),
although at first it was a guild of tilers only.' The extended arm above the armor-
ial shield shows a hand clasping a brick axe, as opposed to the brick trowel one
might expect to see. Company rules excluded 'aliens', emphasising that, by then,
the best native craftsmen (and not just the Flemish) were very capable of work-
ing bricks post-fired. English craftsmen must always have had the opportunity,
even in the earliest times, to learn from Flemish 'hewers'. This fact is clearly
shown in a letter of
c.
1440 concerning the preparation and cutting of an ornate
chimney at Havering-atte-Bower (Essex), as reproduced by Ryan (1996, 57):
Ye well ordeyne me a Mason that ys a ducher or flemyng that canne make a dow-
bell chemeney of ye brykke … and yf ye may no fflemyng have then I wold have
an engelesche man and he were a yong man for a yonger man ys sharpest of
wittes and of cunnynge [skill],
Abrasives
The rubbing of both individual bricks and completed enrichments, to achieve
shape or finish on cut and rubbed brickwork, is a practice again steeped in
the traditions of stone masonry; particularly of working soft stone. For abrad-
ing bricks on the banker, depending on the relative hardness of the individual
bricks and the detail the craftsman was shaping, the hewer might use an appro-
priately sized metal file, rasp, 'riffler', or even timber.
Files
The many tiny chisel-like teeth of the metal file all point in the direction
in which it must be pushed in order to be effective. According to Salaman
(1975, 619):
A treatise of 1100AD mentions files of square, round, triangular and other
shapes. At this time files were made of carburized steel that could be hardened
after completion of the cutting, which was done with either a sharp, chisel-like
hammer or chisel and hammer.
