[Illustration: BRICKFIELD, SHED, KILN, &C.]
It would be very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to discover at
what time in the history of the world the art of brickmaking was first
practised. In the earliest records of the human race the making of bricks
is mentioned; this was part of the labour imposed upon the children of
Israel, when they were in captivity in Egypt, and bricks of excellent
quality are found in some of the most ancient buildings, the remains of
which have been discovered. Though uncivilized nations, and even some
which had made great progress in civilization, but lived in very warm
or exceedingly cold climates, frequently built dwellings of wood, of
wattles or strips of trees and branches covered with clay and lime, and
of rough stone and earth; and though whole tribes lived and still live
under tents, or in mere log huts and wigwams, or lodges made of the skins
of animals, the manufacture of bricks formed of clay, and either burnt
with fire or dried in the sun, is amongst the oldest of all known trades.
In our own day it has arrived at such perfection and the varieties of
bricks and tiles are so great in order to provide for the great diversity
in buildings, that it is one of the most important branches of English
industry.
We learn from the Bible that burnt bricks were used in building the Tower
of Babel, and from early historians, as well as from recent discoveries,
we know that they were also made for the walls of Babylon. The bricks of
the ancient Egyptians were made of clay tempered with water and mixed
with chopped straw, and afterwards dried in the sun, and the labour of
the Israelites was made more severe by their being compelled to find
straw for themselves. In Rome both burnt or kiln-dried bricks and those
dried in the sun were employed, and though at a later date the art of
brickmaking seems to have fallen into disuse, it was revived again in
Italy after some hundreds of years. The trade seems to have been brought
to England by the Romans, and many of the most ancient buildings in
this country are made of very fine brickwork, though, till the reign of
Elizabeth, only large mansions were so built, the common houses being
formed of frame-works of timber filled in with coarse plaster supported
by laths of wood.
There are few more interesting sights than a brick-field in full work
with its great sheds, its horses going slowly round and round in the
mills, grinding the clay which has been dug out of the deep pits; its
great stacks covered with hurdles and screens made of reeds and its
immense kilns, so cleverly and evenly built, where the smoke rises lazily
from the dull fires by which the drying or burning is completed.
[Illustration: Clay Mill.]
The methods of brickmaking differ considerably in various parts of
England, but that which we most commonly see in practice near London
will very well represent them all, and it is this which will now be
described. The earth used for making bricks is found after digging till
the labourers reach the loamy soil lying just above that blue clay which
is known as London clay; and this earth is known as strong clay, mild
clay, and malm, and this earth requires preparation by mixing with them
chalk and the dust of burnt ashes from the dust bins. These burnt ashes
the brickmakers call “breeze.”
The chalk mill and the clay mill are placed close together on large
mounds, high enough to allow the “malm” (which is a mixture of chalk and
clay ground to a thin paste) to run down to the brick earth. The chalk
mill is a round trough where the chalk is ground by heavy wheels fitted
with spikes on their tires or hoops, and turned by one or two horses.
The trough is supplied with water from a pump, and the chalk, as it is
ground, runs off by a wooden gutter into the clay mill, where it is again
stirred and ground till it mixes with the clay; the mixture then runs
through a grating and through other gutters to the brick earth, which has
been placed in heaps to receive it.
[Illustration: Hack Barrow. Barrow.]
When the earth is mixed in this way, it becomes brick-clay, and is taken
in barrows up a sloping board, to the pug mill. The pug mill is a great
tub, the top of which is larger than the bottom, and in the centre of it
there revolves an upright iron shaft fitted with knives. These knives cut
and break the clay as it passes through the mill, and they also force it
downwards till it reaches the bottom, where it passes through a hole on
to a machine called the Cuckhold, which is a sort of table containing a
trough where the clay is cut into lumps ready for the moulder.
[Illustration: Pug Mill.]
[Illustration: Barrow for carrying baked Bricks.]
[Illustration: Kick and Stockboard. Mould. Board for Moulding. Strike.
Brick-mould.]
The moulder who shapes the clay into bricks uses moulding sand,—a
peculiar sort of sand brought from the bed of the river, and spread out
in the sun, where it is turned over and over till it is quite dry. It
prevents the clay from shrinking, gives a harder surface to the bricks,
and prevents them from sticking to the mould, or to each other; it also
gives the London bricks their grey colour. The moulder stands at the
moulding stool, which has a rim at each end to keep the moulding sand
from falling off, and has a stockboard, which forms the bottom of the
brick-mould, and a page, or two iron rods nailed at each end to wooden
rails, used to slide the raw bricks from the moulder to the place from
which the “taking-off boy” takes them to place on the “hack barrow,” by
which they are carried away. The moulder is served with the lumps of
clay by the “clot moulder.” The “brick-mould” is a kind of box without
top or bottom, and the moulder dashes the tempered clay into the mould
with sufficient force to make the clay completely fill it; after which
the superfluous clay is removed from the surface of the mould with the
strike. The brick is then turned out on to a pallet or board, on which it
is wheeled by the boy to the “hack ground,” where the bricks are built up
to dry in low walls called “hacks.” The brick moulds are made of brass
or iron, and often of wood. Sometimes the bricks are dried on a floor
under a shed, but often in the open air, where they are covered with
straw, reed-flats, or canvas and tarpauline screens, to protect them from
wet, frost, or excessive heat. The bricks are afterwards burnt either in
“clamps” or in “kilns.” In clamp burning the bricks are built up close
together, and the bottom ones only are heated with burning breeze or
cinders, the heat spreading to those at the top. A kiln is a sort of
large chamber in which the bricks are loosely stacked with spaces between
them for the heat to pass through, and they are baked by fires placed
either in arched furnaces under the floors of the kiln, or in fire holes
made in the side walls. The kilns are built of various shapes, and one of
the principal arts in the trade of the Brickmaker is to construct them
that the heat may be properly distributed, and the bricks equally and
thoroughly baked.
[Illustration: Shovel. Pick. Reed Flats.]