Repairing scratched 1920s soft red brick

[CopperShop]

Hi all,
Been lurking for a while since buying our 1920s police house / prison, a few months ago.

On the rear elevation we have bricks that are excessively scratched (who knows what someone was thinking ).

Don't really want to have to paint the whole wall if at all possible as want to retain the character. So just looking at ways to repair the damage and maybe tint the bricks afterwards, as there are many shades across the entirety of the wall that would benefit from homogenisation to a more uniform appearance.
We are in the process of replacing the odd brick that has blown or too damaged to viably stay, then a complete repoint in lime to replace the cement mortar that's been used at some point.
Has anyone come across a similar issue and found a reliable way to resolve at all?
Happy New Year!

 

[fallschirmjager]

I used 'Liquid Weather' to darken my garden wall in places where weathering had lightened some areas.

 

[Cubist]

I can't claim to have a coppers nose but I strongly suspect that most of those scratches were made by the local bobbies bikes being stored there.

Your best and quickest solution might be to clean the surface of the bricks using a dry ice or walnut shell blasting service. These are much less aggressive than sand blasting but would still require careful use to avoid the softer lime mortars. Even so, the the scratches will be difficult to thoroughly remove but cleaning the faces of the bricks will make them much harder to see.