COLLECTING BRICKS

FOUR HUNDRED BRICKS LINE JASON Harris's hallway, and none of them hold the ceiling up. Arranged in an earthy ombre from ruddy terra cotta to cream, these once-functional rectangles are now purely for show. The London-based architect doesn't think this hefty display lends him much gravitas in British brick collecting circles, though. "I'm a lightweight brick collector because I just like the color and the shapes," Harris says. "I feel a little bit of a fraud amongst the collecting community."

And he'd definitely be a fraud among builders, since his bricks all face the wrong way. Their frogs, the indentations on the top sides, are exposed to reveal writing that's usually hidden in a wall.

Frogs were first pressed into bricks in the late 18th century, to make for easier handling and allow room for extra mortar. A century later, manufacturers were stamping their names and addresses into the frogs, with lettering ranging from the primly functional to the wildly ornate. "It's design for utility that often has a strange, imperfect quality that really appeals," says Patrick Fry, a graphic designer who published a life-sized Brick Index book based on Harris's collection. "It holds an honest story."

These stories can only be read once old buildings are no longer standing. But as bricks loosen from the grips of Victorian homes, factories, and shops, their embossed frogs lure British brickophiles to stockpile them.

Henry and Mary Holt's collection of a whopping 7,000 bricks supposedly began after Henry saw a frog coincidentally inscribed with his last name: "E Holt and Company, Rossendale." A retired builder, Henry Holt might have missed the feel of a brick because he spent the next three decades (into the early 1990s) hunting for more, using outdated maps to pinpoint old brickworks and collieries. He'd then try to find the fruits of those brickworks at nearby demolition sites.

The Holt collection is legendary in groups like the British Brick Society, a club founded in 1974 by academics who wanted to study the history of brick building and brickmaking. Today its members are a mix of professionals and hobbyists, with a few in either camp collecting bricks. British Brick Society member John Harrison was interested in brickwork history first. "I am not a collector who chose to collect bricks," explains Harrison. "I am someone with an interest in brickwork and bricks who ended up collecting some."

To read the complete article, see:
Inside the World of British Brickophiles (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/brick-collecting/)

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