The History of the Brick

May 29, 2024

1–2 minutes

And what I found out about it.

These are archeological finds from The Warren, Sullington, West Sussex. I was also asked to find out about a broken brick and a terracotta roof tile.
The tile is from the roof because it was a farm building and it would not have had a tile floor.
I think it would have had a dirt floor or cobbles but we didn’t find any cobbles so it was probably just dirt.

The big dig: Me, above, with a brush in the trench at Sullington

The brick has been charred more on one side as there is a slight difference in colour. It’s hand made because there is no ‘frog’ – which is a dimple for mortar to go in.
Handmade bricks were made locally before the Industrial Revolution, in 18th Century.
We measured the brick so we can find out what period the brick was from.
We could only measure one side because the face of the brick was broken on the others.

The big brick: Measuring the brick found at The Warren

It measured two inches. This was the smallest measurement because all the other sides were broken but were larger.
We measured in inches because this was the measurement they used when we think it was made.
We checked using a website and this said that there were thicknesses of bricks from each era.
A two inch thick brick was the size of bricks made in the 15th Century.
But we found that it could be from up to the 17th century because bricks couldn’t be made accurately at the time.

Keith, who was in charge of the dig, asked me to find out more about the artefacts and this is what I found out. He measures them usually by bananas, so I did too!
Rowan