In praise of red brick ……….

How easy it is to take red brick for granted.

Red brick in the sunshine, 2024

It was after all the chosen material across the city until the advance of grey concrete and all those variants from rusted metal to multi coloured panels.

And yes, I know that there are also those tall, impressive stone clad buildings in the city centre, but they don’t have that warm homely appearance, especially when the sun is out and cracking the paving stones.

The realists, historians and party poopers will of course point out that it is just down to the availability of materials and that go elsewhere, and you will be confronted with grey stone, bluey flint stuff along with brightly painted daub walls.

Dirty yellow brick, 2007

And here I have to admit that the sight of rows of red brick terraces, and semis was a surprise to me when I first took the train north in 1969.

Until I was 19, houses came in variations of pale yellow, yellow grey and dirty yellow, which my Wikipedia tells  is “London stock brick, the type of handmade brick which was used for the majority of building work in London and South East England until the growth in the use of Flettons and other machine-made bricks in the early 20th century. 

Its distinctive yellow colour is due to the addition of chalk. 

Another important admixture is 'spanish', which consists of ashes and cinders from rubbish. The spanish ignites on firing and reduces fuel costs at the firing stage”.*

And it was so common across my part of southeast London that I just assumed the world was made of the stuff.  From our old house on Lausanne Road to the humble railway stations of Queens Road and New Cross and up to the imposing Charing Cross Railway Station all looked pretty much the same.

All very different from Chorlton, Didsbury and great chunks of the city and beyond.

Brick sharing some wood, 2024

Now red seems the norm and while there are variations, I do feel at odds when I go home and walk the streets full of that other colour.

That said I guess it is only the unfamiliarity of London Brick after 55 years of living in the north that makes it seem odd, and so much about growing up in one place and living in another is about coming to terms with the differences.

And in the space of the time it has taken me to write this, I have realized I do miss that yellow brick but red it is for now.

Location; Chorlton, and Peckham

Pictures bricks and houses wot I have known, 2007-2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*London Stock Brick, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_stock_brick#:~:text=London%20stock%20brick%20is%20the,to%20the%20addition%20of%20chalk.