Brickwork

People use bricks to build walls.

A bricklayer stacks them in rows. These rows are called courses.

They use wet mud to hold them. This mud is called mortar. The mortar goes in the gaps.

Some bricks have holes in them. These are called perforated bricks.

They can also have small dips.

Bricks have been used for a long time. People used them in the Stone Age. They used them in ancient lands too.

Brick walls can be very strong. They help our homes stay up. Can you find a brick wall?

Brickwork is a way to build walls. A bricklayer makes these walls. They use bricks and mortar to do it. Mortar is a material that holds the bricks together.

Bricks are laid in rows called courses. Mortar placed flat under a brick is a bed. Mortar placed vertically between bricks is a perpend.

A brick has six sides. The top and bottom are beds. The long sides are stretchers. The short ends are headers.

Bricks come in different shapes. A solid brick has no holes. Some have a small dip called a frog. Perforated bricks have holes that go all the way through.

Builders use different ways to lay bricks. This is called a bond. A rule of bonding is to not line up the perpends. Instead, the center of a brick should cover the joint below it. This makes the wall very strong.

People have used bricks for a long time. Some brick buildings in Pakistan are from 2600 BC. Other brickwork in Iraq is from 1400 BC.

Brickwork is a special way to build strong structures. A skilled worker called a bricklayer makes it by hand. They use bricks and mortar to create walls and buildings. Mortar is the material that holds everything together. Bricks are laid in long rows called courses. Each course sits on top of the one before it. This process builds the wall up higher and higher.

There are many ways to place a brick in a wall. A brick has six different sides that each have a name. The top and bottom surfaces are called beds. The long, wide sides are called stretchers. The short, narrow ends are called headers.

You can also stand bricks up vertically. A brick stood on its long side is a soldier. A brick stood on its wide face is a sailor.

These different positions help create beautiful patterns.

Bricks do not always look the same. Some bricks are solid with no holes at all. Other bricks have a small dip on the surface called a frog.

Some bricks are perforated, which means they have holes that go all the way through.

Builders also use different sizes of bricks. In the UK, a standard brick is 215 mm by 102.5 mm by 65 mm.

They use special math to make sure the bricks and mortar fit perfectly.

People have been building with bricks for thousands of years. Some of the oldest brick buildings were in Mohenjo-daro in modern Pakistan.

Those buildings were made around 2600 BC. In Iraq, the ziggurat of Dur-Kurigalzu used fired bricks around 1400 BC.

Even older structures used bricks that were dried instead of being fired in a kiln. These ancient places like Jericho in Palestine show how long people have used this skill.

To make a wall strong, builders follow a rule called bonding. They do not line up the vertical joints, called perpends, in a straight line.

Instead, they place the center of a brick over the joint below it. This overlapping pattern makes the wall an inseparable mass. This is similar to how you might overlap pieces of wood to make a floor. It ensures the wall stays sturdy and does not fall apart.

Brickwork is a form of masonry produced by a skilled worker known as a bricklayer. It involves the systematic arrangement of bricks and mortar to create durable structures like walls and buildings.

This technique is essential for construction because it allows for the creation of massive, stable, and often decorative architectural features. By stacking individual units in organized rows, builders can control the height, thickness, and strength of a structure.

To understand how brickwork functions, one must look at the relationship between the bricks and the mortar. Bricks are laid in horizontal rows called courses. A course is defined as the bricks contained between two planes parallel to the horizon.

Between these bricks, mortar is applied to act as a binding agent. Mortar placed horizontally below or on top of a brick is called a bed. Mortar placed vertically between two bricks is called a perpend, or a head joint in the United States. This layering process ensures that the weight of the structure is distributed across the surfaces.

Bricks are not all identical in shape or design. A solid brick has simple, rectilinear dimensions with no extra features. Some bricks feature a depression on one or both beds known as a frog.

These are called frogged bricks, and the frog should not exceed 20% of the total volume. If the depression is larger than 20%, the brick is classified as a cellular brick.

Other types include perforated bricks, which have holes that pass entirely through the unit from bed to bed.

Builders often use face bricks for visible external surfaces because they are higher quality. In contrast, filler bricks are used for internal parts or areas that will be covered by a coating like stucco.

Precision in measurement is vital for successful construction. Engineers use two types of measurements: working dimensions and co-ordinating dimensions. Working dimensions, or nominal size, refer to the manufactured size of the brick. Co-ordinating dimensions include the actual physical size of the brick plus the required mortar on one header face, one stretcher face, and one bed.

In the United Kingdom, a common standard for a brick is 215 mm by 102.5 mm by 65 mm.

When using 10 mm mortar beds and perpends, the math works perfectly. For example, the 215 mm length of one brick equals the width of two bricks (102.5 mm each) plus one 10 mm perpend.

Brickwork has a very long history spanning thousands of years. Some of the earliest examples of brickwork involved bricks that were simply dried rather than fired. These ancient structures can be found in places like Jericho in Palestine and Çatal Höyük in Anatolia.

Fired-brick construction appeared later in history. The buildings of Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan were built around 2600 BC. Later, around 1400 BC, the ziggurat of Dur-Kurigalzu in Iraq utilized fired-brick faces. This progression from dried to fired bricks shows how humans improved the durability of their buildings over time.

Builders also use different orientations to change the appearance and function of a wall. A brick has six surfaces: top and bottom beds, narrow header faces, and wide stretcher faces.

When a brick is laid flat with its long narrow side exposed, it is a stretcher. If the narrow end is exposed, it is a header.

Bricks can also be stood vertically. A soldier is a brick laid vertically with its long narrow side exposed, while a sailor is a brick laid vertically with its broad face exposed. Other positions include the rowlock, which is laid on its long narrow side with the short end exposed, and the shiner, which is a rowlock stretcher.

To ensure maximum strength, bricklayers follow the principle of bonding. This means that perpends should not be contiguous, or lined up, across different courses.

Instead, the vertical joint of one course should be covered by the center of a brick in the course above it. This overlapping pattern creates an inseparable mass. This method is also used to bond different "leaves" or layers of a wall together. A single-leaf wall is half a brick thick, while a wall that is "one brick thick" is as wide as the length of a single brick. This structural logic allows brickwork to relate to broader engineering systems, providing stability through geometry and friction.