There’s such a romance to brick: they're moulded to fit a human hand, light enough to be carried, and have a soft warmth of colour and texture.
The Romans brought bricks to England, but when they left, they seemed to take brick-making with them.
Really, it wasn’t until the 15th century that brick came back into widespread use.
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Traditional bricks were made simply from clay or a clay and sand mix. For a good brick, you need two types of clay: a plastic clay and a sand-rich, non-plastic clay to off-set the tendency of the former to shrink and warp during firing.
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The most common clay minerals are silicon dioxide and aluminium oxide, which form a micro-structure of thin sheets. The plasticity of clay is due to the ease with which these sheets slide over each other when wet.
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I love the colour variations in bricks – buff to rust, biscuit to plum – and the gorgeous mottling you get within an individual brick. Whilst it is mainly the chemical components in the clay affect the colour, the production process impacts on it greatly...
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- if clay isn't mixed thoroughly, different lumps will burn to different shades. The firing temperature, level of oxygen and location within the kiln also all greatly affect the shade and character.
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Impurities within the clay ‘stain’ the brick to change the colour or give a brindle appearance. Oxidising conditions at 900°C-1000°C turn most bricks red, but above these temperatures the colours darken.
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In reducing atmosphere, where oxygen is restricted or eliminated from the kiln, purple or blue bricks result. Sometimes moulds were dusted with different coloured sands or metallic oxides to achieve specific colours; eg, chromium gives pink, copper green and manganese brown. 8/
Brick-patterning, that is picking out decoration on a façade in different coloured brick, appears to have originated from northern France towards the middle of the 15th-century. It wasn’t long before it became very fashionable in England...
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The ornamental header bricks used for patterns were ‘glazed’ with a silver-grey coating of potash – potassium carbonate salt – which is formed when timbers burn. (This effect can't be achieved with coal as the fuel.)
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These bricks would have lined the fire-tunnel of the kiln and faced the highest temperatures. Under this intense heat the surface could be vitrified, where minerals ‘melt’ to form a shimmering ashen glaze.
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Across the centuries, the saintly dedication of a parish church can change — and at Manordeifi in Pembrokeshire, it is thought that the church's dedication has shifted several times throughout its long history.
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A Christian place of worship at Manordeifi is believed to have stood on the site of the present church since the 7th century. The earliest church here was reportedly dedicated to St Llawddog.
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A son of the Prince of Usk and a renowned as a miracle-worker, Llawddog became the focus of a popular local saintly cult. As such, there are thought to be four other churches in the region that were also originally dedicated to him.
Why is the English name for the festival of Christ’s resurrection so different from its name in almost every other language?
1/9 📷 East window of St Cadoc's, Llangattock-Vibon-Avel by Lavers & Barraud (1875).
In English, this most important Christian festival is known as Easter, whereas in most other languages, its name is markedly different: Pâques in French, Pasg in Welsh, and Páscoa in Portuguese.
2/9 📷 East window of St Beuno's, Penmorfa, Gwynedd by an unknown maker (c.1851)
This divergence between English and most other European languages is a hotly debated historical topic, relating to the transition from paganism to Christianity in England during the 6th and 7th centuries.
3/9 📷 East window of All Saints', Ballidon by C.E. Kempe
Caring for over 60 places of worship in England and Wales means that from a few of our churchyards you can see some varied sights.
From 20th century infrastructure to cultural landmarks, the fabric and fate of our churches has been shaped by their localities.
1/6 📷 Sutterby
On the Welsh border, in the remote fields of Herefordshire stands St Peter's, Llancillo. Adjacent to the church is an 8 meter high earthen Motte, which is all the remains of Llancillo Castle. This fortification was originally constructed in the 1090s by Richard Esketot.
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Releasing plumes of steam into the sky, the cooling towers of the Drax Power Station are visible, across the flat Yorkshire’s Ouse Valley, from St Helen's, Barmby on the Marsh. While St Helen’s tower was built in the 1770s, the cooling towers were constructed in the 1970s.
Red and yellow and pink and green ... most children can tell you that rainbows contain seven colours, and many of us use 'ROYGBIV' to remember them. But people haven't always seen rainbows this way.
Rubens' 'The Rainbow Landscape' of 1636 was painted just three decades before major new scientific theories about colour and light emerged. The rainbow lights up surrounding clouds with highlights of lemony yellow and blue.
In 1664, Robert Boyle conducted experiments with prisms, and in the 'artificial rain-bow' he produced, he observed five colours: Red, Yellow, Green, Blew and Purple. ...
The church at Skeffling was built from glacial clutter and recycled masonry in the 1400s. It sits in Holderness. A landscape of mudflats and salt-marshes washed into existence by the North Sea.
Here ‘leaves unnoticed thicken, hidden weeds flower, neglected waters quicken’.
Those are the words of poet, Philip Larkin. Larkin explored this area after he moved to Hull in 1955 to take up the position of librarian at the Brynmor Jones Library at the University of Hull. He lived there and held that job for thirty years, until his death in 1985.
Of Hull, he wrote "I never thought about Hull until I was here. Having got here, it suits me in many ways. It is a little on the edge of things, I think even its natives would say that. I rather like being on the edge of things.”
If there were more than 20 sheep in the flock, he could note the first 20 when he reached Figgit by putting a pebble in his pocket, and then starting the sequence from Yan again.
(info from 'Alex's Adventures in Numberland' by Alex Bellos)