Education

Gerard Lynch is an internationally acclaimed and highly respected historic brickwork consultant, master bricklayer, educator and author. He followed a traditional apprenticeship as a bricklayer and, over the years through his natural ability within his craft, gained many awards, including the Silver and Gold Trowels from the Brick Development Association and is a Licentiate of the City and Guilds of London Institute (LCG).  He is a former Head lecturer of Trowel Trades at Bedford College, pioneering a revival of gauged brickwork, in which he is considered the world’s leading authority, and other almost forgotten traditional craft skills; and is affectionately known by the historic term, ‘The Red Mason’.

 a highly-skilled and refined method of pointing, or re-pointing, brickwork whereby a coloured mortar joint is placed to match the brick and grooved while ‘green’ or fresh, to receive a separate, and carefully placed, lime putty: silver sand ribbon. The ribbon is then neatly trimmed to a smaller scale to form a precise, raised, profile. Its historical intention was originally to create the illusion of accurately laid, cut and rubbed and gauged brickwork, on a standard brickwork façade; constructed of, often-irregular, bricks. In the nineteenth century, however, it was often resorted to as a means to disguise inferior brickwork.

a term used to describe brickwork where a superior finish in the details of an important brickwork elevation is required, such as moulded reveals, arches, string courses and other forms of ornamentation.  A highly skilled branch of the craft of the bricklayer, it involved works to very accurate measurements that raised artisans of the craft to the status of the mason.  By definition, to gauge is to measure, set out and work exactly, objects of standard size so as they conform to strictly defined limits, and this term is eminently suitable for this class of brickwork.  Gauged work is where the bricks are worked or gauged to size and shape.  Special outsized ‘soft’ bricks known as ‘rubbing bricks’, ‘rubbers’ or ‘cutters’ are used.  These can be cut, filed or carved like cheese, yet their surfaces become hard with weathering, enabling them to survive the polluted atmospheres of the big towns and cities.