Crafting Tradition: The Art of Brickwork and Restoration In England

Words: Jack Phillips, Phillips Heritage
Photos: Jack Phillips

My name is Jack Phillips, and I was born and raised in London. I have since moved to Yorkshire, where I live with my family. However, the majority of my work predominantly remains in London.

My career in this trade began when I left school and started working with my dad, who is a carpenter. I began as a laborer on sites. My dad tried to teach me his trade, all with the best intentions and doing what was best for me, albeit in a slightly angry-dad way, while I was a rebellious teenager. I rebelled and chose to become a bricklayer instead. I soon grew a love for it, and came from London, where in my opinion, has the best architecture, especially brickwork, in the world. I often found a young me staring, fascinated at brick walls. After a few years, I was sure this was the path I was going to take in life, but I had always wanted to be a soldier for as long as I can remember, so this was an itch that I needed to scratch. So, I did!

When I had just turned 21, I was signed up for the British Army, and before I knew it, I was in my infantry battalion on pre-deployment training to go to Afghanistan in 2009 at the height of the war. Long story short, after 10 years of traveling the world and three operational tours later, I decided to call it a day and continue where I left off in the construction industry.

I started back on building sites, building houses and commercial work, but it didn’t take long to realize that it wasn’t for me, as I was more quality over quantity, as opposed to quantity over quality. Growing up seeing centuries-old traditional brickwork in London led me to the traditional side of things. I began educating myself with my ever-growing collection of traditional brickwork books, mastering things like geometry for complex arches and how old buildings need to be maintained and restored with the correct materials and methods. I have taken myself on many different courses using traditional lime, i.e., pointing, plastering, and stone repair.

The majority of my work for the last few years has been tuckpointing. English tuckpointing isn’t the same as what you guys call tuck pointing in the States. It is a traditional style of pointing designed to mimic "gauged brickwork".

To make cheap irregular bricks look like expensive, good quality bricks, blinding out the joints in a colored stopping mortar the same color as the brick and re-applying a thin 3-5mm lime joint.

I have been fortunate to work on some beautiful buildings, mostly in central London, but also some beautiful, more remote old cottages. This job in particular was a 16th/17th century cottage with soft red bricks. Buildings of that era were built with a solid wall structure as opposed to a cavity wall, with lime mortar and lime plaster allowing water vapor to absorb and desorb freely. When modern materials like cement pointing, gypsum plaster, and chemical injected DPCs are applied, they stop the passage of water vapor, trapping moisture in the walls. This deteriorates the bricks in the freeze-thaw process, causing cold spots for condensation to build up internally, creating mold, and an unhealthy living environment. The work that I undertook on this property was to remove all the cement pointing and replace it with lime mortar. I replaced the worst of the spalled bricks on the property. However, below the injected DPC, there were too many to replace, and therefore I applied a lime render plinth.

On the same property, there were two chimneys that needed pointing, but when I started the work, they partially collapsed as most of the original lime mortar had weathered away. It was a tough decision to either take them down completely or save as much of the original brickwork as I could and rebuild what had collapsed. The brickwork that was still standing was in really bad condition, but it had been there for hundreds of years. So, I decided to save as much as possible, and I’m glad I did. Hopefully, they will still be there for another couple of hundred years.

Another project on the same property was a doorway that had been bricked up with modern bricks. The client asked me to see if I could do anything with it. This was a challenge as it’s always hard to blend old with new, but really hard blending 400-year-old with new! Traditionally, the mortar would have been made on or close to the site with the lime fired in a kiln, slaked, and mixed with a local aggregate. I had to replicate this as closely as possible. After visually analyzing the original mortar, I used three different grade sands and slaked quick lime (calcium oxide) to add water, creating an exothermic reaction turning the quick lime into lime putty (calcium hydroxide). Once slaked, I whisked the aggregates and put them together, making a good match mortar.

I have made various videos of this process on my website, www.phillipsheritage.com, and social media platforms: Phillips Heritage. I have also made a video explaining the mortar variations on this property over the years, hydraulic lime, and non-hydraulic lime. However, as the brickwork was in quite a bad state, I think the non-hydraulic mix was best suited as it is the most capillary active and vapor permeable, allowing any moisture to escape freely.

I hope this article has been a good insight for many of you. If I can help any of you by answering any questions or giving advice on traditional structures, I would be more than happy to do so. You can find my contact details on my website.

Crafting Tradition: The Art of Brickwork and Restoration In England

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