Bricks date back to 7000 BC making them one of the oldest known building materials. They were used by the Egyptians and especially the Romans to build some truly magnificent structures including the Coliseum, aqueducts and communal baths. The baths in Paris, built 9AD, still stand, their carefully laid precision brickwork fully intact.

When the First and Second fleets arrived under the command of Governor Phillip they brought 5,000 bricks with them but convicts had to make many more.

Bricks and clay have since shaped Sydney’s built environment more than any other materials.

Most towns and cities have their fair share of brick and tile constructions but Sydney is unusual in the extent to which the urban landscape has been so profoundly influenced by these basic, yet ancient building material.

Although building styles have changed dramatically over the past two centuries, brick and mortar remains dominant in housing construction.

Brickfield Hill, on the site of today’s central station was a good source of clay. And convicts were keen to be paid according to their output. They stamped their own “signatures” in their moulds such as animals.

The bricks were not a consistent size or shape and many were over cooked leaving big black blotches in the clay.

The Elizabeth Bay House site built c 1834 was built using bricks and many have been unearthed from the original 54 acre garden site.

Today, a unique heritage wall of bricks from the site stands in Fitzroy Gardens facing Macleay Street (see photo attached)  showing some burnt  bricks and other garden remnants with frog “signatures”, their maker’s mark.

Brickwork and the important skilled work of brickmakers and bricklayers continued to be evident in nearby 20th century buildings such as The Oxley apartments, 12 Ward Avenue with its handmade stepped window boxes, in the New York apartments building opposite with its nine inlaid, patterned brickwork panels, at 4 Ward Avenue, Marlborough Hall, with its curved entrance and wedge-shaped brickwork, and at Gowrie Gate, 115 Macleay Street with its stepped back brick entrance-way – all the work of skilled craftsmen and all providing texture to the buildings’ facades and adding interest to the local streetscapes.

By Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions