On-site: Found it, finally! (Not a way to evade tax)

There’s something not quite right about this wall.

It takes a minute or two of staring, but then the secret slips, and the façade gives way.

The bricks are ever so slightly gauged, or irregular
The pointing depths are irregular, particularly from vertical to horizontal, perpends are abutting in some locations.
The pointing itself is recessed continuously from horizontal to vertical, not so strict but I would have expected some strike marks at intersections
If you zoom in you can see a systemic nature of contours at the corner edges of the bricks, the organic dark soiling helps to highlight. This is shrinkage induced by heat and typical of thinner clay work; like a crisp in the oven… see where this is going?

Then there’s this:

To the top, the cracked brick, resin/glued/fillered back on
Mock-Lime brick replacement. Why not a brick substitute?

And then this:

The mitres are keyed ends so as to appear as a complete ¾ brick, or at least try. If they were simply squared, they would, in my opinion, look stranger and I believe the craftsperson shared this view.

So, what is it? This is an example of some of the very first brick-slip technology, or their original name “Mathematical Tiles”. These date from the 18th century and are more commonly found in the Southeast of Britain. From 1760 onwards, they were deployed on timber framed structures, and this is exactly what we have here.

Beyond that green door frame are the clay tiles, they are nailed into those ¾ inch timber boards.

Here’s the back of the timber:

Arguably one of the more mediocre photos I’ve taken, BUT, I really wanted to show how well preserved the structure beyond was for those interested in relative performance.

Mathematical Tiles often get lumped into the ‘Brick Tax’ rationale, this is not true as the Brick Tax was in effect from 1784 to 1850, yet we see this technology a generation prior.

Application notes from the British Brick Society:

Openly I have doubted that I would come into contact with this technology due to its rarity. It was more a matter of time in reality and I shouldn’t be so pessimistic.

There are now vast ranging modern methods of brick-slip construction, with a new format exhibiting some form of permutation entering the market almost yearly. We now have over two and a half centuries of this technology. However, it would be misleading to lean on this heritage and imply evidence of resilience for modern systems. It could only be regarded as false positive. Each requires scrutiny and appraisal with the fundamental objective and application at the centre.

I wonder if in 265 years someone will write about finding such gems in regard to the systems we install now.

The last jewel was what was revealed through the green door, not façade related but photo worthy, if only to make up for the dreary one above: