BROKEN PROMISES

 

Further investigation of the broken bond posted a week ago. Many thanks to all who took an interest.

The snapshot was from the rear of the last house in the row. Broken bond above the kitchen window on the ground floor of a double storey offshot to the rear of the house. The layout is familiar, common to many terraces and semis of the Victorian/Edwardian era which saw so many towns expanding rapidly across Britain. In fact my son’s previous house was very similar to this, albeit slightly smaller and part of a terrace. There may have been an “offshot to the offshot” for outside WC and coalhouse.

 

 

In this case it’s a group of seven semi-detached houses built with polychrome brickwork in an eclectic style. Seven pairs, which appear on a map of 1913 and perhaps under construction on the 1888 map. So probably Victorian. There is a possibility that this pair was the last to be built, perhaps after 1888 (the resolution of the map makes it hard to be sure, the group of semis are shown as a single block, but there is a gap at the end of the row).  In most cases the outside WC has been demolished and replaced with a modern extension.  Styles vary.

 

The gable at the far end of the row uses Flemish Garden Wall, obviously 9 inch (one brick) thick. The facades are all in Flemish with pale/cream string courses and quoins plus the occasional blue brick header. The original photo of the broken bond is from Jubilee Road which I take to be the Golden Jubilee of 1887, just before the map. (available of the National Library of Scotland website as an underlay to the 1913 survey, with transparency slider. What an excellent resource that is.   

 

 maps.nls.uk

 

 

 Windows are timber sliding sash set behind brick reveals. From my experience working on similar house construction in the 1970s as a bricklayer and general builder, the sash box will occupy the thickness of the inner leaf plus plaster, and be finished with architraves to match the door  frames. 

 

 

Was the polychrome intended to convey a red-white-&-blue patriotism?  I haven’t spotted any original rainwater goods, but I’m guessing cast-iron. In Sheffield it would have been timber gutters with cast-iron downpipes. Actually there may be one cast-iron downpipe in the next image. Fretwork barge boards, handsome tall chimneys. The builders may have been a bit lax in their approach to bonding around the back of the building, but you have to admire some of the craftsmanship and respect for local traditions on show here.

 

The use of stretcher bond on the side and back of the last block I take to be a “rationalising” measure, using metal ties. Don’t see the logic of introducing cavity walls just at the back of the building especially when windows there follow the same logic of brick reveals. Did all the headers on the front façade of the building carry right through the wall? Maybe not. Did they actually use metal ties? Perhaps they just hoped for the best. 

 

The broken bond seems to arise from window openings that are four and a half bricks wide. On some other blocks in the same area the windows on the end wall have quoins in white brick. Obviously these need to be symmetrical and planned for at ground level. Broken bond above and below results. Maybe they wanted the reveals to be symmetrical even when they weren’t picked out in this way. Perhaps it was “the way we do it”

 

 

 

This has turned into a much deeper dive that I originally intended but all the better. My aim is to keep studying the buildings around me, especially the older ones, and to gradually come to a deeper understanding of what’s going on. To conclude I will conclude with another visual from the study of my son’s former house that I did in Revit (incomplete). The sash window study earlier in this post also uses Revit of course. My tool of choice for many years now, as an architect, whether on commercial work, or on personal historical studies like this.

Many thanks to all who offered their thoughts and suggestions on the original Linked In post. That’s what prompted me to do the deeper dive and it turned out to be a lot of fun.