HERITAGE SOFT RED & HERITAGE DEEP RED

Our most traditional red sandstock, or more accurately sandstruck brick. Subtle soft orange to red tonal changes and elephant skin creasing. Its similarity to bricks used in 17th century England and 19th century Australia is due to the traditional method we use to manufacture these bricks and is a testament to the craftsmanship of our brick makers.

Comparison between our Heritage Soft Red (bottom) and Heritage Deep red (top).

Here our Heritage Soft Red has been blended with our darker Midnight Red to create a multi-toned red facade.

Heritage Deep Red

Beautiful elephant skin creasing in a blood red sandstock brick.

Vintage Red

Our Vintage Reds are produced by the careful selection of bricks from differing parts of the kiln. As each brick in the blend has experienced slightly different temperatures and redox conditions, the result is a natural array of red hues which result in the most amazing vintage red blend.

Outstanding elephant skin creasing is a characteristic of our handmade Heritage Soft Red and Deep Red bricks.

Comparison of our Heritage Soft Red sandstock brick (top) with mass produced bricks (bottom 2) that claim to be suitable for heritage applications.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF SANDSTOCK BRICKS

The term sandstock gets misused a lot, in particular it often gets applied to many mass produced bricks that have a textured (e.g. stamped) surface, but these are sandstocks in name only, they are not true sandstocks.

Sandstocks are often referred to as convict bricks, this is partly true, many convict bricks are indeed sandstocks, but not all sandstocks were made by convicts, many early commercial brick makers made sandstock bricks.

So what actually is a sandstock brick?........most simply a sandstock brick is a handmade brick made by pressing clay into a brick mould dusted with fine sand (the sandstruck process). This process results in compression marks or an elephant skin texture to develop on the face of the bricks. These compression marks are further developed during air drying before they are fired in the kiln. As you can see by the picture below, the true characteristic texture of a genuine sandstock brick is unmistakable.

Historically sandstocks bricks were common in South Australia and NSW, unlike Victoria and Tasmania in which waterstruck bricks were more common.