Decorative brickwork

The work most people never get to see being done. Panels, banding, arches and plinths, all set out and cut by hand.

What we do

Decorative panels and banding, including raised and projecting courses.
Header courses, plinths, string courses and corbelling.
Brick arches: soldier, segmental and gauged work.
Feature work around doors, windows and openings.
Dentil detail, dog-tooth and other traditional patterns.
Curved and radius work where the pattern has to follow the sweep.

The bonds worth knowing

A bond is the pattern the bricks are laid in. It is decided before the first course goes down, and it changes what a wall looks like and how long it takes. These six are the ones worth knowing the names of.

Stretcher bond. Every brick shows its long face, each course offset half a brick. The only bond a one-skin garden wall needs.

English bond. A row of long faces, then a row of ends. The strongest bond in brickwork, and the one to ask for on a free-standing pier.

Flemish bond. A header between every two stretchers, in every course, each header centred over the brick below. The smart one, and the one that takes the most care to keep true.

English garden wall bond. Three courses of stretchers to one of headers. Nearly the strength of English, a lot quicker to lay, and a great many old walls in these two counties are built in it.

Soldier course. Bricks stood on end in a row, usually over an opening or as a band. The verticals in arches and banding like ours are courses like this.

Brick on edge. Bricks stood on their narrow side, so the course shows a taller face. It is the classic way to cap the top of a garden wall, and it throws the water off rather than letting it sit there.

Drawn to true brick sizes: 215 by 65 millimetres, 10 millimetre joints. Not scale art.

It takes longer, and it is priced that way

Detailed work takes longer per brick than plain walling. We price it for the time it actually takes rather than burying it in a general rate and then rushing it on site. Cutting a brick to a pattern by hand, and keeping the joints even right around a feature, is the slowest thing we do.

If you have seen something you like, send it over. A photograph, a wall in the village, a detail on a house you have driven past. It’s a far better starting point than a description, and we can tell you what it takes and what it costs.

What it costs

Decorative, radius and intricate work is priced by the day, from £600 for the two of us. Detail takes the time, not area: a curved wall takes around double the time of the same wall run straight, and a decorative bond is 30 to 50 per cent on top of plain facing work. So we’d rather price from the drawing or the photograph than quote a rate per square metre and then have an argument about it. Send us a picture and we’ll tell you how many days it’s likely to take.

The worked examples in the price guide show how a decorative job gets built up.

Decorative brickwork is at its best where people will actually see it. Around a front door, along a boundary, on a wall you walk past every day. Show us where it is going and we can tell you what suits it.

Got a pattern in mind? Send us a photograph of what you like and we’ll tell you what it takes.

Call 07826 825312 Send a photo instead