# Brick, laid the slow way
Author: Hana Sato
Author URL: https://demofolio.superblog.click/author/hana-sato/
Published: 2026-07-04
Category: Materials
Category URL: https://demofolio.superblog.click/category/materials/
Meta Title: Brick, laid the slow way · Folio
Meta Description: A garden wall built by one bricklayer over a summer, in Flemish bond, with lime.
Tags: materials, gardens, brick, lime
Tag URLs: materials (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/materials/), gardens (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/gardens/), brick (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/brick/), lime (https://demofolio.superblog.click/tag/lime/)
URL: https://demofolio.superblog.click/brick-laid-the-slow-way/

![An old brick wall, close up](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1592853598064-5a7fa150592c?ixid=M3w3OTAzOTJ8MHwxfHNlYXJjaHw3fHxicmljayUyMHdhbGwlMjB0ZXh0dXJlfGVufDF8MHx8fDE3ODg2MzQ3MjZ8MA&ixlib=rb-4.1.0&w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop)

Cement mortar is fast, hard and grey. Lime mortar is slow, soft and the colour of sand. A wall laid in lime moves with the seasons and can be taken apart and relaid a century later. A wall laid in cement cracks, and the bricks crack with it.

## The bond

Flemish: a header and a stretcher alternating along each course, so the wall reads as a pattern rather than a surface. It is slower to lay and it uses more bricks. It is the one you look at.

## The bricks

Handmade, from a yard forty miles away, with the slight sag that comes from being thrown into a mould rather than pressed. No two the same, which is why the wall never looks flat.

## The summer

One bricklayer, four months, a wall sixty metres long. It is the best thing on the site and it does not have a roof.


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