The image below shows a street view of a Sussex town in frosty November. Notice the plumes of steam pouring out of "Harveys" in the distance, those in the know will be familiar with the delicious hop aroma emanating from this Real Ale Brewery, for this is Lewes in East Sussex.

Whilst I do enjoy a pint of Harveys I am more interested with the building on the left, the brick building with curved bays.

The construction of this building is typical of the area and of large Sussex towns, however it is more prevalent in Lewes due the towns long standing as the County Town.

What is so special about this brick building? Well it is brick, of sorts, but if you look carefully enough you'll realise the difference.

The elevation does not give much away, but you'll notice the bond is all headers which means it must be a fairly substantial wall, but not the best bond for a building this tall as the bricks do not "bond" well. Although if you look closely some of the headers have twisted slightly, all is not as it seems, if the bricks had twisted then the wall must have seen some major movement, because of the bond on a tall building?

Now the bays are the real giveaway. If the wall was as substantial as already noted, and if the bay is to curve correctly, each individual brick would have to be chamfered to cater for the curve. The unusual curved glass in the curved sash windows above is also worth pointing out!

With the image above you can see that the elevation of the bay is actually concave, now that would be impressive if chamfered bricks had been used and laid in such a manner as to create a concave plain on a curve, easily done in CAD these days I know but not on site!

The above close-up still does not really reveal anything, apart from the fact that all the grouting has fallen out, but are they whole bricks?

Well, no!

As you'll see below, where some damage has occured at the door reveal, it can be seen that the construction is in fact hung brick tiles.

So now we can see that as the building has aged some of the tiles have slipped, dropped, even cracked. The bays themselves, having been made of timber have moved at different rates, hence the in-bowing fronts.

The building is actually, entirely clad in brick tiles.

There also other good examples in the county, some buildings around The Steine in Brighton are of similar construction, but Lewes is well worth a visit to explore these brick tiles, as there are many buildings in the town of differing colours and designs. You just need to work out which are tile and which are brick.

Most houses, offices, or indeed many buildings put up a fence or wall around their premises to define the curtilage of their site. Yet as the years have gone by we have paid less interest to their design or quality. Although made of relatively weatherproof material, treated timber or galvanised metal mesh many are basic and plain with no redeeming features.

So it is of interest to know there are still some interesting walls around!

These images are of a wall on the outskirts of Brighton that has stayed the test of time, my guess between 150 - 175 years old. The private estate it once surrounded has long gone, having been divided up and sold over the years to allow for several smaller housing developments, some of much lower quality than the wall containing them!

The wall itself is solid brick with a large curved stone capping piece to each pier. The stone cappings are weathered but still hold their original carved circular details. The bricks, Sussex reds and probably hand-made, are starting to de-laminate [where the top layer becomes weathered and weakened with frost, etc and finally flakes off leaving a rough coarse finish]. The design is quite simple and includes whole bricks in a Flemish garden wall bond or Sussex bond, curved brick copings to the top of the main walls and with moulded brick string courses above and below the cut-out features. Some of the mortar has fall out in parts, but on the whole the wall is in great condition considering its age and the lack of maintenance it receives; undoubtedly due to it now being under shared ownership.

Interestingly it seems not to have suffered from graffiti artists and contains an abundance of insect life living within the brick pockets. The adjacent pathway is a busy one and many people stroll pass this wall oblivious to its presence, and I guess that's possibly the sign of a successful wall!