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London stock brick is the type of handmade brick which was used for the majority of building work in London and South East England until the growth in the use of Flettons and other machine-made bricks in the early 20th century. Its distinctive yellow colour and soft appearance come from the yellow local clay from which the bricks were made. London Stocks are still made in comparatively small quantities in traditional brickworks, mainly in Kent and Sussex, for heritage work, and machine-made versions are available for use where a cheaper approximation to the traditional product is acceptable.〔Brunskill, R.W. ''Brick Building in Britain''. Victor Gollancz in association with Peter Crawley, 1997.〕 Red stock bricks are also fairly common, but only the yellow or brown coloured bricks are usually known as London stocks. ==History== During the 19th century the fields around London were built up with new housing. Commonly, a field would be excavated to expose the brickearth or London clay subsoil which was then turned into bricks on the site by moulding and firing them. The bricks would then be used to build houses adjacent to the brick field - transport was expensive. Once the building work was nearing completion the brick field would be levelled and built upon while a new brick field further out would supply the bricks.〔http://www.brickfields.org.uk/text/georgian-landscape.html〕 Bricks were also made in clay areas surrounding London. During the 19th century and early 20th century 5 million yellowish stock bricks a year were supplied from the brickfields of Yiewsley and Starveall Middlesex for the building of the `new` London. Bricks were also made in Kent, Essex and other areas where they could be imported to London by rail. In Stock, Essex there is a common belief that "Stock Bricks" originated there; bricks were certainly made there, but the name is a coincidence, stock being a common English word with many meanings and also a common place-name element.〔http://www.stock.org.uk/history/stocktxt1.htm〕 Air pollution in London during the 19th century and early 20th century commonly caused the bricks to receive a sooty deposition over time, turning the bricks greyish or even black, but the removal of contaminants from the air following the passing of the Clean Air Act in 1956, has enabled older buildings to be cleaned and new buildings to retain their natural colour. In the 19th century, London stock bricks were available in a variety of grades priced according to their consistency and their regularity of shape and colour. High grade bricks were used for face work and lower grades were bought for use as internal bricks. Unfortunately it seems to have been common practice for a high grade brick to be broken in half so that it could be used twice, each end appearing as a header in the wall. The result of this parsimony was that the wall was deficient in bonding bricks, i.e. bricks tying the outer skin of brickwork back to the inner part of the wall, often resulting in the outer skin peeling away from the inner and bulging out. This issue, known as snapped or snap headers, leads to walls which need to be repaired either by rebuilding or by fitting various types of proprietary tie.〔JAMES STEVENS CURL. "brick." A Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. 2000. Encyclopedia.com. 7 Nov. 2010 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「London stock brick」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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