On Masonry, and How it may be Improved [1]

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There is nothing we more fondly cherish than “the longing after immortality” – the desire to realise duration – nothing more repugnant or humiliating than decay; and when we gaze upon those monuments of ancient grandeur – scarred and blackened by the war of elements though they be – the question thrusts itself upon us – Are we doing our part in passing to posterity what we have received from our ancestors? Are our attainments equal to our advantages? Can the nineteenth century, now well advanced in years, survey our doings, and, comparing them with what has been done before, say with maternal complacency that she is “proud to see her bairns respected like the lave.”

The last thirty years have seen immense sums expended on engineering works, which must necessarily exist for generations to come. But, with few exceptions, little artistic skill has been bestowed upon them. Our country is traversed in all directions by railways, but to harmonise the lines of these with the features of the scenery through which they pass has not yet come to be considered amongst the engineering difficulties. While they are generally constructed on sound mechanical principles, and do their hard worldly work well enough, let us hope when cutting, embanking, and bridging has ceased to be regarded as something wonderful, our engineering brethren will turn their attention to the higher art of design, and render their works admirable as well as serviceable. The enormous costs of these undertakings, their probable duration, and the important place which they occupy in our system, demand that some care be taken to make them as respectable in appearance and character as they are useful in purpose. Let us ever bear in mind that the business of commerce is inferior to the business of life. But let us inquire into the state of things amongst the housebuilders, and see whether in this department we, of Glasgow, are making progress equal to our advantages.

We live in a great city – our merchants are princes; the amount of capital annually expended in building is immense; our architects are numerous – they are intelligent and erudite, possessing aids and facilities in the practice of their art which, in no former age, was ever dreamt of. They are built about with books, containing examples of every known style. If an architect wants an idea, he does not require to fly away into the region of imagination to fetch it – it is ready at hand on the adjoining shelf, and needs only to be reached down. Treatises upon everything connected with building are multiplied and piled up to an extent that defies perusal. Our builders, besides having access to these mountains of knowledge, have mechanical aids unknown in the days of our fathers. For building materials, besides iron and brick, our neighbourhood abounds in stone, which for quality, variety, and abundance, is unequalled in the kingdom, and what have we made of it all? While we can boast of many stately piles and noble ranges from Wilson Street and Carlton Place[2] of a past generation to the crescents and terraces of our modern West End, it must be confessed that we do not exhibit that advanced state of progress which might be looked for from our opportunities. There are many adverse influences concurring to produce this effect. Let us not some of them.

The excessive competition which exists has a tendency to deteriorate our style of building. Speculation is another fruitful source. When the erection of houses becomes a business, of course it must be made to pay, and when a builder feels that he cannot offer to the public any inducement to purchase from him rather than the trade in general, and so warrant him putting a profit on his work, his next course is to see whether he cannot, by scrimping and paring, manage to save a profit off the market price. This system gradually gets beyond the surface, and eats into the vitals – the very bone and sinew is withheld.

Another evil which affects all kinds of building in the west of Scotland is the hurry with which the most important undertakings are urged on. Due time is not allowed for the consideration of the plans. The manufacturing principle governs all. An order is given, and it is expected that hands are ready to execute it, like any other piece of routine work. The public do not take into account the long and careful reflection and arduous labour that is involved in the realisation of thought.

We might go on enumerating the hindrances to improvement, but unquestionably the greatest of all is the absurd system under which our quarries are conducted. Whoever takes the trouble to visit any of them will observe that there are various kinds of rock. In the Giffnock quarries[3], for instance, besides flags, we have moor rock, red rock, brown rock, grey rock, white rock, and hard rock; and each of these may be subdivided into different qualities. On the one hand is to be seen a section of the strata in some instances a hundred feet in height, with only three or four feet of earth on the top. From the distributing of the veins which traverse the face, it is evident that the rock is capable of being detached in large masses. But, opposite this smooth face of solid stone, we see a great mountain of fragments; so great, indeed, that it would almost seem as if the greater part of the solid rock on the one hand was broken up to form the mountain of fragments on the other. Have we been deceived as to the solidity of the rock?

Let us watch the process of quarrying in its various stages. In one place we see a man with a pick forming a narrow trench, separating the portion to be quarried from the main mass. Another, by means of rows of iron wedges and a great hammer, is detaching from the platform of rock on which he stands, a stone five or six feet square, by about two feet thick. This it might naturally be supposed could be transported to the city, dressed and set up on edge as so much wall, without more ado. This, however, is not the rule, but the exception. Should a customer make his appearance at this stage wanting such a stone, he is made to pay at the rate of three to four shillings per cubic foot for it; but in ordinary cases this fine stone has to be cut into pieces – part of it must be smashed into rubbish to form the adjoining mountain, which, of course, yields no return, but, on the contrary, is reared at considerable expense. The smashing costs something, and the removal of it by shovelling, wheeling, and hoisting, costs something more, and the chances are that sometime or other it becomes necessary to remove the whole heap at a cost perhaps of several hundreds of pounds. Another portion of this great stone is made into ruble [sic], and sold at fourpence per cart, or about a farthing per cubic foot. Another portion is cut into ashlar, and sold at tenpence per cubic foot. It will be seen by this mode a premium is offered for the worst kinds of building, whilst an enormous penalty is exacted of the man who would endeavour to build a good solid wall. But, leaving the rubbish in the quarry, covering good rock, confining the workmen, and blocking up roads, let us follow the remaining portions to their destination, and observe the process by which they are re-formed into solid masses in the walls of some buildings in the city.

Take the front wall of a four-storey tenement for an example. The foundation having been dug out, we begin our wall by laying large flat stones of the rougher sort, from three to four feet in breadth, and, if there is no sunk floor, upon these are set the shop piers, of solid or cube stones, three or four in the height of the pier. Thus far the work is good and sound. On the top of these piers are laid lintels of wood, iron, and stone; and then begins our ordinary and all but universal two-feet wall. To make a good substantial wall, calculated to stand plumb for a reasonable length of time, uniformity of structure ought to be aimed at as an essential condition of stability. Is this the case with our two-feet wall? Let us look at its parts. About three-fourths of its thickness towards the inside on which the joists rest, is composed of ruble [sic], that is shapeless fragments of stone, costing as already stated, 4d. per cart load in the quarry, but with cartage and tolls added, its cost laid down in the city is about 4s. Then there is the lime brought from distances varying from six to nine miles, and costing laid down about 12s. a load. The next ingredient is sand, which ought to be purely crystalline, but it is not always so, as the supply is to a considerable extent accidental. If the builder is not so fortunate as to find sand in excavating for his foundation, he looks out for some brother in trade who has, and buys of his superfluity, at the rate of 1s.6d. or 2s.; add to these water, which amounts to several pounds upon an ordinary job, and we have the component parts of the ruble portion of our two-feet wall.

Let us see how it is wrought up along with the ashlar. In the process of smashing up the mass of stone in the quarry, the ashlar is produced in square stones, 6 or 7 inches thick, 12 or 13 inches high, and two to three feet long. These stones are selected from the finest, the whitest, and the softest quality of rock. It is first hewn, and then, to satisfy our washerwoman instincts, the sparkling texture produced by the chisel is rubbed out, and it becomes plain, dead, repulsive, polished ashlar. Two Irishmen trembling under its weight, and at the risk of their lives, carry it up to the scaffold and deposit it beside the builders. If the bed be found pretty level throughout the whole thickness of the stone; as it ought to be, the builder with his hammer knocks two or three inches off the inner corner, so as to limit the difficulties of setting to the smallest possible surface, viz., about an inch. He then with his thumb applies a little putty to the stone already in its place, and to this he fits with ease and nicety the fine edge of the stone to be set. To make up for the portions knocked off by the hammer, a few chips are inserted as props which serve until the backing is brought up to its support. For the inner face of the wall the largest and flattest of the shapeless fragments are set up on edge, a handful or two of the smaller fragments spread over with mortar, makes up the intervening space, and this course is repeated with the addition of an occasional connecting stone throughout the three upper storeys of the tenement.

We should suppose that a wall built after this fashion, with the stones on the outside fitting hard and close together, and those in the inside bearing only upon each other’s prominances, aided by a few chips and a little mortar, could only maintain its perpendicularity through some fortuitous combination of circumstances. Everybody knows that a piece of board or paper, having one side contracted by heat, and the other side expanded by moisture, assumes a curved form. This ought to be a very frequent result of the mode of building we have described; yet, somehow or other, partly by luck and partly by the assistance of the joists, borne up by the partitions, these walls do often grow up to the height of fifty feet or more above the ground without presenting any very serious distortion.

If the invention of this style of building does not belong to comparatively recent times, the general adoption of it certainly does, as in the works of the ancients and of the middle ages the walls were either altogether solid double ashlar, with concrete centre or ruble throughout; in all these, both sides were alike.

Let us consider whether we cannot make a change for the better either by reverting to some of the old modes, or by availing ourselves of the knowledge and appliances which we have so abundantly at our command, devise a mode founded upon and fitted to our particular circumstances. In order to do this, we must begin by reforming our quarry system; we must abandon the exclusive use of the soft white rock, for, if not the very worst, it is certainly very far from being the best of the many kinds at our disposal. It is a bad weather stone, and when polished is not only dull and uninteresting, but positively forbidding in expression, and has the effect of contracting the apparent dimensions of architectural forms. Its principal recommendation is facility in working, and comparative uniformity of colour, but to these unimportant qualities all the other kinds of stone are sacrificed. By a little study it would be possible to find a place in our walls for almost all the different kinds of rock found in our neighbourhood.

The moor rock is particularly deserving of attention. It is an excellent weather stone, and, from its crystalline texture, exhibits a beauty and transparency approximating to white marble or grey granite. When first quarried it is very soft, and apt to crumble away before the chisel, but after exposure to the air for a short time it becomes very tough. The hard white rock is a very superior stone, and resembles the celebrated Craigleith rock.[4] From its transparency and closeness of texture, it loses nothing in the polishing, and, being very durable, is suited to the best purposes. Owing to its hardness as compared with the commoner sort, it is seldom used except for stair steps. I mention these varieties merely as examples, and from having used them, believing, at the same time, that there are many more equally deserving of attention.

Seeing, then, that on the one hand we have such a variety of stones to choose from, it appears reasonable that they should be classified according to quality; and on the other hand, as there is no difficulty in procuring large stones, let the absurd classification according to size be abolished as speedily as possible, and a uniform rate of price adopted for the various kinds for all stones of a workable size. If this system were introduced, it is easy to conceive that a great improvement in building would immediately ensue. With our Derrick cranes and our steam-engines we could lift and set stones on our walls of three or four tons weight.

Our walls should be all solid or cube. The saving in bedding and building, in lime, sand, and other items, would be very considerable. We could also afford to reduce our walls in thickness; and, as the weight would be reduced in proportion, there would be less risk of the foundations giving way. I may mention that there are tenements in the older parts of our city, four and five storeys high, built of ten-inch perpend stone, which have stood the test for a hundred and fifty to two hundred years, without showing any inclination either to nod or tumble.

In such as system as this, measuring and estimating would be reduced to the utmost degree of simplicity. We would only require to calculate the cubic quantities of stone, and the superficial quantity of hewing and building, in order to ascertain the cost of any piece of work, instead of the imminent danger of losing our reckoning in rolling about, as at present, in a tumultuous sea of prices ranging from a farthing to three or four shillings per cubic foot. The scope that would be thus afforded for architectural effect is incalculable. We would have arcaded, pilastered, and columnar facades of the most dignified descriptions for the present cost of our ordinary street fronts.

In order to carry out this system to its fullest extent, and with the greatest economy, the blocks of stone should be transported to their destination in the state in which they are detached from their native beds, without squaring or preparation of any kind. An opportunity would thus be afforded to the intelligent mason to cut up his stuff to profit and suit circumstances. It would, moreover, be advisable to adopt the irregular mode of masonry, which is not only pleasing in itself but gives contrast and relief to the architectural features and details. The smallest stones could be used along with the largest. For example, a cube, say of three inches, could be fixed on as a basis, and all larger stones squared to sizes that would multiply by the cube of three inches in every way. In this manner a rough block would be cut into stones as large as it would admit of, and the smaller pieces squared until the sizes ceased to be worth the trouble. The refuse would be used about the foundations, under pavements, or for sand for masons and plasterers, so that nothing need be lost.

I would also recommend a lining of brick inside the walls, with a space for air between it and the stone, in lieu of lath and straps – the dooking for which is a frequent cause of mischief in wedging walls off the perpendicular.

[The reading of the paper was followed by the remarks of some of the members present, and the Chairman.]

Notes

1.  Alexander Thomson’s paper, ‘On Masonry, and how it may be improved,’ was read to the Glasgow Architectural Society in the Scottish Exhibition Rooms in Bath Street (which Thomson had designed in 1854) on 22nd February, 1859, and was printed in full in the Glasgow Herald the following day.

2.  Wilson Street in Glasgow had been laid out in 1793 but was much rebuilt in the 1930s; a block designed by Robert & James Adam survives at the western end. The two terraces forming Carlton Place on the south bank of the Clyde, the beginning of the new suburb of Laurieston, were built in 1802–04 and 1813–18 and designed by Peter Nicholson, the grandfather of Thomson’s wife, Jane Nicholson, for whom see Dr A.L. Macdonald, ‘The Ingenious Mr Nicholson,’ in The Alexander Thomson Society Newsletter Nº19, August 1997.

3.  The quarries at Giffnock and the other sources for the building stone used in Glasgow are discussed in the account of ‘Topography and Building Materials’ by Judith Lawson in the Buildings of Scotland volume on Glasgow by Elizabeth Williamson, Anne Riches and Malcolm Higgs, Glasgow 1990.

4.  The “celebrated Craigleith rock” was the building stone used for the New Town of Edinburgh.