Brickmaking: history and heritage

It is always interesting to find a new book about bricks. Often ignored, these little marvels need to be celebrated, and, for this reviewer at least, there can never be too many opportunities to do so. The ability to manufacture sufficient bricks to meet demand underpins the industrial history of our country, and it is difficult to see why this story has been so neglected over the years. As the title suggests, Johnson’s book is an overview of the subject of brickmaking. It begins with a look at how the geology of the UK determines where brickmaking first appeared and the differences in the approach to both extracting and using the material. As he points out, all clays are not the same.