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Last edited 19 Apr 2024

A brief history of the brick

The use of bricks dates back to before 7,000 BC, most likely those unearthed in and around the ancient city of Jericho, in the south of modern-day Turkey. These were made from a high clay content type of mud hand-moulded into brick unitsand dried in the open air under the sun. The architecture of the Mycenaean civilization or early ancient Greeks also used airdried mud bricks in some of their constructions, examples of which can be found in the famous city of Mycenae located in Peloponnese, Greece, as well as Tiryns, Pylos, and Gla.

Paintings showing the mixing, tempering, and carrying of clay for use as sun-dried bricks found on the tomb walls of Thebes provide illustrated evidence of the brick use by the ancient Egyptians. They formed bricks using clay mixed with straw before being laid out in the sunshine to dry. Examples of these earliest bricks have been found in ruins such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa Buhen (Harappan architecture), both found in modern-day Pakistan. Also, some time later in central America, the Aztec civilizations used mud and straw to fabricate sun- or air-dried bricks, which were used to buildmany of the Aztec structures and pyramids.

Though the early use of bricks fired in kilns is associated with ancient Rome, due to the scale of production and number of buildings still standing, it was as early as 4400 BC in Neolithic China that fired bricks were first used. The walled settlement of the Daxi people in Chengtoushan, found on the northwestern edge of Dongting Lake in Li County, Hunan, contained floors that were made of red clay-fired bricks.

The Romans, however, through the use of mobile kilns, made extensive use of manufactured bricks throughout theirempire, using mainly white or red clay, which was usually stored for over a year before being used for construction. Roman bricks were longer and thinner than the brick dimensions used in later years, often used in lacing courses of stone walls or for base pillars, and the knowledge of the technology came to Britain when it became part of the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. Examples of Roman brick use in the UK can be found at Burgh Castle in Norfolk, in the Roman town of Caerwent in Wales, and at Newstead at Melrose in Scotland.

Brick making stopped in Britain when the Romans left Britain around the 5th century, and while some buildings were built from re-used Roman bricks after then, such as the nave of St Alban’s Abbey with bricks from Verulamium, in general it wasn't until the 12th century that brick use returned. The term brick Gothic refers to an architectural style found in north and central Europe in areas that had little access to exposed standing stone. As it was associated with the Hanseatic League of Merchants, it is less common in the UK.

Small-scale brick manufacturing and mediaeval English brickwork are considered to have started again in an area near Coggeshall Abbey and a monastery in Essex in 1200. While examples of mediaeval brickwork can also be found in Beverley North Bar in East Yorkshire as well as Rye House Gatehouse and Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, they date a little later, from the 1300s and 1400s. The Tudor period from the late 1400s to 1600 saw a decline of the Gothic style and a rise in the use of brickwork. The earliest example of a Tudor brick house in London is considered to be Bromley Hall, an early Tudor period manor house in Bromley-by-Bow, Tower Hamlets, London, which was built by Holy Trinity Priory in the 1490s. It was later seized as part of the English Reformation and used by Henry VIII himself in the mid-1500s. Henry VIII's most famous residence, completed in 1540, was also a primarily brick building. Hampton Court was at the time considered the most modern, sophisticated, and magnificent palace in England.

The Great Fire of London in 1666 and the Act for Rebuilding the City of London in 1667 proposed that all new buildings had to be constructed of brick or stone to prove against the future perils of fire, which increased the use of bricks in more standard building construction. However, it wasn't until the 1800s and the start of the Industrial Revolution that the mass production of bricks meant they became more widely available, a common alternative to stone, and gradually the staple construction material of the UK.