Bricks

Some people collect stamps, others collect elephant items, the builder of the Italian Gardens clearly had a thing for bricks. 
​Brick making used to be a very local thing, cricks were heavy to transport, so you might as well make them close to the clay, and close to where you needed them. As a result the colour variations throughout the country is quite dramatic. 

Bricks were stamped with the details of the brick maker, so we spent quite a while looking for bricks that were local to our old home in North Staffordshire. Dad's family are Stoke people, so this collection from Fenton and  Longton reminded us of the colours of the terraced houses throughout the city.

This wall contains ones that are a bit more local to Wales, with some wonderful stamping for the brickworks names. 

Even the middle of these bricks are beautiful, I love how the outside and the inside turned different colours in the firing process. Wonderfully subtle...
One of the jobs for this week is to plan the February Gradient Pack colours, maybe a brickwork colour way is on the cards.