CONTEXT 180 : JUNE 2024 7 from a heritage perspective is the buildings and properties in its care, as there are simply too many churches in Scotland for the sizes of the congregations. This was the case even before the decline after the second world war, when there were many more church buildings than might ordinarily be expected, exacerbated by schisms within the established church. The article also presents comments from Craig Stanford, strategic heritage project officer for the Places of Worship Project for Historic Environment Scotland. Construction History For those interested in brickwork, Construction History, the international journal of the Construction History Society (Vol 38, No 2, 2023), has two relevant papers. Coated brick is relatively uncommon in the UK, but its use as an ersatz for limestone is a phenomenon found in France and Sweden. Linnéa Rollanhagen Tilly explores the influence of French methods of construction. She has attempted to identify the differences and points of conversion between two urban construction programmes of the 18th century in two geographically distinct cities: Toulouse and Stockholm, both thought to have been based on the common model adopted in Paris. Tilly’s analysis draws on three distinct research projects, involving the study of a wide range of archive documents and historic publications, notably published by the Swedish Academy of Science, and specifications within contracts for public buildings and urban programmes. She has concluded that informal networks were created by contemporary construction professionals on tours across Europe, then considered an essential part of the education of the gentry. Not only could those on tour study buildings first hand, but they would also purchase books and models relating to construction. The author’s research demonstrates numerous similarities in these two very different cities, especially in the use of bricks with stone-like coatings as a substitute for stone, either as a more affordable material, or in locations that lacked an adequate source of limestone. In the second paper of interest, Catherine Rangel Cobos, Felix Lasheras Marino and Javier Pinilla-Mello of the Department of Construction and Architectural Technology, Madrid, discuss a divergence of practice between American and English technical texts published up to the 1930s regarding the composition of brick walls. Before the 20th century, numerous solid brick facades in both Britain and the USA featured stretcher bond (without cavities), although the differentiation of the bonding types only became clearer in the 1940s with the assignment of specific terms. For example, ‘structural bond’ was called ‘the method of overlapping bricks to give the wall a greater strength’, while ‘pattern bond’ referred to ‘the arrangement of the brick in the wall to give a pleasant appearance’. In other words, the latter referred only to the method used to arrange and tie the face bricks on the front, while the former referred to the method of doing so on both the front and the cross-section of the wall. Under these terms, in a wall made in any of the basic bonds (English, Flemish, American, and so on), these bonds worked both for structural and aesthetic purposes. Pattern bond deals with the concerted laying of bricks in the front wall, while structural bond deals with the method of tying the front to the backing construction. The traditional methods used for the external appearance of brick walls, widely applied throughout the second half of the 19th century, are now largely forgotten as a consequence of cavity wall construction (especially where the inner wall is not brickwork). The paper helpfully illustrates numerous bonding configurations in threedimensions with an insightful exposition of the term ‘bond’. The Construction Historian In the sister publication The Construction Historian (Issue 13, Spring 2024) of greatest interest is a well-illustrated article by Nick Hill dealing with the Great Meeting Unitarian Chapel in Leicester, where a recent programme has brought to light an unusual early roof structure from 1708. Pevsner noted that the chapel was one of the earliest brick buildings of any ambition in Leicester. Although major alterations were undertaken in 1866, including a new chancel and portico, investigations have shown that the original roof structure of 1708 survives in almost complete condition. This is of an extraordinary form and possibly unique for this early 1 The Construction Historian | Issue 13 | Spring 2024 Construction Historian THE Issue 13 Spring 2024 The Magazine of the Construction History Society
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