250
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
ushered in the seventeenth century. Then, with the change to
21/2in. brick thickness about 1660, came also a change in colour to
dark-red—plum-red in some cases—and a rougher texture. But
these colours are only typical, and in themselves are no reliable
guide to date.
The eighteenth century produced a good brick of sombre red, a
tone which artists call "cap morte". Usually more regular in shape
and dimensions than its predecessors, it is well in accord with the
spirit of the century.
The nineteenth century opened with a pinkish or whitish brick
which originated in the previous century and which persisted as an
undercurrent to the many variants which accompanied it for a
hundred years more. Its lineal descendant is the clear yellow
Kentish "malms", first introduced about 1860 and prominent until
recently.
The red brick was popular well into the 1830's, then a pale
lemon yellow appeared and continued throughout the middle of
the century, turning into a very strong patchy gamboge yellow
before finally becoming the machine-made yellow brick of today.
At the latter end of the last century appeared, also, a pinky brick,
badly-mixed but rather hard-burnt, which defaced so many villa
residences built at that time and later. Unfortunately, the pink
brick persists to this day, usually not so hard burnt, and many
would have been rejected out of hand as "sammel" (or "salmony"
—from the colour of the fish) in the seventeenth century, known
then to be unsuitable for any facing work and indeed really poor
for any position. An old building book of 1663 in my possession
tells me they "are noe better than dust".
In considering brick colour, it must be remembered that smoke
and grime can turn a bright red brick to dingy brown in a very
few generations, while the white or light yellow brick becomes a
dull grey in fifty years of most town atmospheres.
The bricks we have been considering are plain rectangular
blocks (if we except the "frog" in one face of some).
But on the borderline between brick and terra-cotta is the pur-
pose-moulded brick, which has other shapes than the simple box-
like parallelepiped.
I have already mentioned the rounded segmental Roman bricks
used to build up pillars and the "bowed" bricks used to build
round well-shafts.
Window openings and door-lintels and posts were obviously
suitable for moulded ornament in imitation of the orders of orna-
ment on stonework. Although great skill in cutting soft brick with
the brick-axe was developed early and has been retained to within
comparatively recent times, the alternative of making bricks,
moulded to shape on at least one face was equally early in its.