Random stone and brick on white-rendered walls?

August 2, 2020 9:27 AM

Something I've noticed a lot in the UK (usually on houses built from the 1900s through the 1930s, though sometimes on houses that look a bit older) are seemingly random bricks or stones on otherwise smooth rendered walls. Like the left hand wall on this house. Is this a decorative architectural reference to something specific, or is it just a purely decorative flourish that doesn't reference or represent anything? It's certainly not actually functional, right?
posted by cilantro to Home & Garden (6 answers total)

It's certainly not actually functional, right?

I'd challenge that assumption. Brick is more durable, provides more weather resistance, is lower maintenance and costs more expensive to install. Stone is more durable and more expensive yet.

This is part of why you'll see stone at key points in brick houses, and brick at key points in non-brick houses. Windows naturally are expected to take more wear and weather. And if you could only afford some brick, windows would be where to put them.

I'm sure tradition and style come into it too, and modern construction might even use fake brick to achieve this look. But on an old house like you're talking about, I think there's a functional role of providing additional durability and weather protection around a weak point.
posted by SaltySalticid at 10:21 AM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: While exposed stone/brick masonry can be functional in some cases, I don't think in the particular case of this house (or any of the nearly identical other houses all down the street it's on) that it's anything other than a decoration harkening back to the aesthetic of that look. This street looks like a bunch of suburban duplexes, and while my historicity meter is more tuned to US standards than UK, I'd kind of doubt any of the buildings are more than 100 years old.

In an actual old building, the left wall might have been masonry, but mostly "rubble", or oddly shaped uncut stones basically infilled into the wall between more stable cut masonry pieces, especially at the corners (quoins). Cut stone around windows is easier to install a window into, and works better at forming arches when specifically cut for the task (voussoirs). Then you'd plaster over the rubble portions while leaving the cut stone pieces exposed and proud of the rest of the wall a bit. Not that it's not possible, but I can't think of a reason to have only every other (or every 3rd) voussoir exposed or random pieces of cut stone in the field of the wall other than aesthetics.

There's a different kind of thing some places where masonry (real or fake) is left exposed, as if the plaster has crumbled away over time to create an illusion of age, but that's not the case here.
posted by LionIndex at 11:13 AM on August 2, 2020 [3 favorites]

In this particular case the vernacular is naff. Theuy may even be glued on - the shapes look very tidy! Brick is a great material where you don't have earthquakes and if the mortar is soft it will allow a building to safely move over centuries as the earth rises and subsides withing local natural limits.

In genuine aged buildings it was common to build in stone and then plaster over, this is also common with brick. Plaster coatings are normally weak cement to ensure the building breathes and such finishes tend to erode in patches. Which has become fashionable even tho' it reduces structural integrity and weathertightness.

Agreeing with LionIndex I'd say these are probably ~1940's with an unfortunate recent facade job - the whole street looks like it. Chimney bricks look older and some roof ridge lines appear to be sagging which supports an older build (unless a total shit build).
posted by unearthed at 12:41 PM on August 2, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone, these are interesting answers!

The houses I used as an example are, I believe, from the 1920s and are some of the nicer ones in the area, with lovely big rooms. The vernacular is quite common around North Leeds - I don't think these facades have been updated or changed since being built, but they have been kept up. The style is a bit fussy but they are larger than average, expensive, well-built houses.

The 'random brick or stone' feature isn't limited to this specific style of house, these are just the ones I passed today that reminded me to ask metafilter about it :)
posted by cilantro at 1:31 PM on August 2, 2020

I did think of a reason for random shaped stone in the field of a wall, not that it applies here: they could be longer piece of stone that protrudes on the interior side of the wall to support a beam or some other structural element in the building.
posted by LionIndex at 2:25 PM on August 2, 2020 [1 favorite]

Best answer: USian architectural historian here, but I agree with unearthed, this is meant to look fashionably weathered, as in Ye Olde Tudor Cottage. The exposures are too random to be expressions of interior structure, and they are too similar from building to building to represent real weathering. This kind of faux aging was common in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century as an aspect of the arts and crafts movement.
posted by Preserver at 5:48 PM on August 2, 2020 [3 favorites]