History of woodfired bricks
Brick buildings predating the 19th Century are widely considered to be amongst the most beautiful in the country. It is the subtle colour shades and glazes that characterise bricks from this era, and that comes from the way the kilns were fired, using wood. There has been a sad decline in local character and distinctiveness of buildings. Handmade bricks have been replaced by those that are mass produced. Our view was that the industry was lacking woodfired bricks to enable ultra-authentic conservation of some of our most important historic buildings. We took the decision to learn the woodfiring art and in doing so, successfully reignited a lost technique which was the dominant method of brick production for many centuries.
Fuelling the fire
In the mid 19th Century enabled coal was adopted as a fuel for brick firing as it was quicker, easier and cheaper to use than wood. Coal itself was almost completely replaced in the 20th Century by oil and then gas. While producing an attractive brick in its own right, oil firing does not match the character and beauty of these older buildings. Fossil fuels obviously have many technical advantages which led to their universal adoption, but only wood can produce the natural glazing effect formed as a result of the complex reactions between the brick and the wood smoke that take place during firing. This is completely absent in all other fuels.
Woodfired Bricks by H.G Matthews
Being situated in the Chiltern Hills, there’s an abundance of beautiful buildings built from local bricks fired using wood from the abundant Chiltern woodlands. It is these unspoilt villages, market towns, manor houses and stately homes that share woodfired bricks as their defining element. So when one of the country’s leading brickwork historians, encouraged the collaboration between ourselves and Colonial Williamsburg, where the practice of wood firing had been preserved, we were inspired. And when two of their brick experts came over to teach us the lost art, the rest as they say, is history.
Woodfired bricks today
All of our wood fired bricks are made by hand, a highly skilled process which dates back thousands of years. Forming the brick by hand produces a sand crease on the surface of the brick, this texture provides the character unique to handmade bricks. Each brick contains around a pint of water when it is formed, which has to be removed through drying before the bricks can be fired. The heat source for our drying now comes from wood chip burned in biomass boilers. Once dried the bricks are hand set into the kiln, 60,000 handmade bricks are fired in the kiln for up to five days, stoked day and night.
The re-introduction of wood fired bricks enables, for the first time in over a century, the construction of buildings of the distinctiveness, character and beauty of former times, that will also be admired for generations to come. H.G.Matthews handmade woodfired bricks are arguably the most beautiful brick available and there is no better investment in realising the optimum value and integrity of buildings. Our woodfired bricks are the ideal brick for conservation, restoration work as well as extensions to historical buildings or for new builds requiring a heritage feel.
