Hello from the colonies, well Canada any way.

[TheForge]

A brickyard would still have made hand-made bricks. My point about them not being made on site is that you need both a good supply of clay and a purpose made kiln to produce bricks. Unless you've got a big hole in the ground, and signs of the base of an old building (often round), then the chances are they were hand-made off-site, and transported to site on a cart (or up the river).

These bricks don’t look truly handmade to me. It’s difficult to see from the photos but they look too regular. More likely extruded wire cuts.

You don’t need a purpose built kiln to fire bricks on site though. For centuries (in England at least) prior to the industrial revolution the majority of bricks were fired on site in temporary ‘clamps’ in what was known as the country system. Clamps were constructed of bricks to be fired, sometimes with an outer skin of already fired bricks. Such sites would leave little archaeology to discover. I’ve built and fired several and no permenant structure is needed. You’d also be surprised how well a lot of subsoil clay will fire. In this case though, especially given the number of bricks required and the construction date, I would suspect these were made in an industrial brickyard and transported to site.

 

[Gothichome]

TheForge, making your own bricks, now that’s dedication to old home restoration. I did some on line research, found that there was a local brick maker in Chatham, at least in the year 1900. Interesting you believe they are factory made brick, I would of expected the brick to be more uniform and maybe denser from the extruding process. If there was a brick maker in Chatham in 1880 then it would make sense to barge them down the river. A river barge trip would be less than an hour trip. Mike, I had another look at the pointing and you are correct the pointing does slope inward from top to bottom. Some thing I had never noticed or even knew about. More research is needed to get this locked down.
You must be an old home owner if a discussion on old bricks gets you excited.

 

[MikeG]

........ Mike, I had another look at the pointing and you are correct the pointing does slope inward from top to bottom. Some thing I had never noticed or even knew about. More research is needed to get this locked down.
You must be an old home owner if a discussion on old bricks gets you excited.

I'm an architect, dealing mainly with ancient buildings.....but yes, I've spent the last 4 years renovating a near-derelict 300 year old timber framed cottage.

 

[Gothichome]

Well while i’m Off researching my bricks I thought I would post the view from my back yard.

If my bricks did come from from a factory they would have come down from this direction.
If you look really closely you can see a bit of a one of the oldest homes in the area (just a little bit at 2:00), a Georgian home that was involved in the war of 1812. It would have been a fairly new home at the time.

 

[MikeG]

I had a quick look on google earth at your location, mainly because I was curious about all the English names. Boy, it's flat, isn't it!

 

[Gothichome]

Mike, this area was once just a heavily forested wetland before settlers moved into the area. The whole area is drained via drain ditches. And heavily lumbered for the Oak, ash and walnut. If the ditches were to be filled in it would once again return to wetland, only with out the trees.
I thought I would post a bit of superstition we found while doing some electrical work.

Gothichome is protected by a talisman, we have a pair of shoes in the wall beside the front door, placed there when the home was built to protect the home and those with in from even spirits. I’m sure many of you hear have also found such things.
Ron

 

[MikeG]

...... For centuries (in England at least) prior to the industrial revolution the majority of bricks were fired on site in temporary ‘clamps’ in what was known as the country system.........

Found it! I snapped this in Zambia a few years ago:

You can just see the firewood stack being started in one of the chambers.

 

[Gothichome]

Mike, most folks when traveling Africa take pics of giraffes, elephants,lions,ect. But I guess the old home architect in you just had to take a pic of a clamp
Folks, I could keep posting individual pics of our restoration efforts on Gothichome or you can see lots of pics and conversations on our efforts here.
https://thehistoricdistrict.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=193
It’s a chat site just like this one, I have a 46 page thread with chronological documentation (lots of pictures) of our efforts.
Ron

 

[Westholme]

Folks, I could keep posting individual pics of our restoration efforts on Gothichome or you can see lots of pics and conversations on our efforts here.
https://thehistoricdistrict.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=193
It’s a chat site just like this one, I have a 46 page thread with chronological documentation (lots of pictures) of our efforts.
Ron

Thanks for the link, it was an interesting read. You seem to have a lot of antiques in your house.

I'm particularly interested in fireplaces and chimneys just now as I'm in the process of removing most of a chimney breast from what was the kitchen. My house is semi-detached, built in 1894 with eight proper rooms (excluding hallway) and seven fireplaces.

Your house looks larger than mine and my next door neighbour's combined and yet you say it has only four flues and there appears to be just a single chimney stack intact with two flues. I'm wondering how the other rooms without proper fireplaces were heated. You mention wood-burning stoves - where did the smoke go from these?

 

[Gothichome]

Westholme, our home has only one fireplace, the rest of the heat was provided by parlour stoves in the main down stairs rooms and smaller stoves in each bedroom. Two of these each shared the same flue.

‘Multiple Fireplaces on Different Floors Sharing a Single Flue
Fireplaces sharing a flue (C) Carson Dunlop Associates

Older homes were often constructed with two fireplaces sharing the same flue on the same floor or even on different floors.

Although this arrangement is sometimes found still in use today, this installation may not be permitted in your locale, and there are fire and smoke spread hazards as well as possible draft adequacy questions.’

Although it would be rare to build this arrangement now, I guess it wasn’t an issue at the time. As it stands today Gothichomes second chimney stack has been knocked bown to just above roof height so it can’t be seen in the pics. We are only using one flue for the forced air furnace, the other three have been abandoned. The original and only fireplace had its firebox bricked in long ago. At some point we would like to get it functioning once again but that opens up a whole new box of worms and of course money.

 

[Gothichome]

Westholm, here is our fireplace the day we took possession of Gothichome. As you can see it’s pretty sparse.

I have been told that there was a fancy surround at one time, long since gone.
A few years ago we found this period and correct style insert.
,
At this moment it is just pushed up against the bricked in fire box. At some point I will knock out the brick fill and install it all the way in.

 

[Gothichome]

For those who are interested, this is some of the plaster work Gothichome wears.
The dinning room

We have two of these, one in the dinning room the other in the back parlour.

And four of these, two in each hallway.

And finally the front parlour

 

[MikeG]

Looks like you had/ have a damp problem in that room with the fireplace. What action did you/ will you take?

We still have people here who will repair or copy ornate plasterwork like that. Do you have access to such skills in Canada?

 

[Gothichome]

Hello Mike, there is no damp issue in the front parlour. What your seeing is 1962 wallpaper covering the 1880 wall paper. It’s slowly falling off the walls. All those blotches spots are shadows from pictures ect. We do have a lot of humidity here in SW Ontario though. Over the decades it has just creeped into the seams and started discolouring the paper. It’s on the list of rooms to restore, but not this year. This year I am removing the scourge that is white paint from our once stained woodwork in the hallway.

 

[Gothichome]

I meant to post a pic of our home as it is today as a comparison to the as bought.

I have one large window left to restore on this side of the home. This is the up stairs hall window. Hopefully I should get it done this summer, along with a few others.

 

[Gothichome]

How about a few more pics of Gothichome for you picture hounds.
This is the panelling in our dinning room when bought, under that paint it is stained.

The panelling goes around all four walls.
This Flemish oil lamp we bought for the dinning room. Had to order a replacement shade from Belgium.

And this is how it looks today with out antique dinning set and antique dishes set out.

 

[MikeG]

I don't recall ever seeing paneling like that previously. There's some work in that, particularly with the curved mouldings.

 

[Gothichome]

Mike, yes there was. We have the same style panelling in the front hall way as well, although much taller to fill the stair well. My suspicion is the curved details were purchased millwork. But all the rest would have been boards. The carpenter fitted the panels to the milled curves. The wood I believe is clear pine or some other yellow white deal. I do know it is rock hard and brittle now, so that’s why I think pine. Although poplar was often used deal as well.

 

[Gothichome]

How about some more pictures of one of the restored rooms.
This is one of the bedrooms.



And these are the befor pics.
https://thehistoricdistrict.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=193&start=100
Sorry it has to be a link but photo bucket has messed up my direct links

 

[MikeG]

Well that room turned out absolutely beautifully. Congratulations.