In this system a course of bricks is laid across the wall, showing their
heads at the surface, hence called "headers," and next above comes a
course of bricks stretching lengthways at the wall, called stretchers,
and so on alternately. With the Dutch fashions came in Flemish bond, in
which, in each course, a header and a stretcher alternate. In either
case, at the corners, a quarter-brick called a closer has to be used in
each alternate course to complete the breaking joint. There is not much
to choose between these methods where the walls are only one brick
thick. But where they are thicker the English has a decided advantage,
for in walls built in Flemish bond of one and a half brick thickness or
more there must be a few broken bricks, or bats, and there is a strong
temptation to make use of many. If this takes place, the wall is
unsound.

Many of the failures of brickwork in London houses arise from the
external walls, where they are 1½ bricks thick, being virtually in two
skins; the inner 9 in. does the whole of the work of supporting floors
and roof, and when it begins to fail, the outer face bulges off like a
large blister. I have known cases where this had occurred, and where
there was no header brick for yards, so that one could pass a 5 ft. rod
into the space between the two skins and turn it about. This is rather
less easy to accomplish with English bond, and there are other
advantages in the use of that bond which make it decidedly preferable,
and it is now coming back into very general use. There are some odd
varieties of bond, such as garden bond and chimney bond. But of these I
only wish to draw your attention to what is called cross bond. The name
is not quite a happy one. Diagonal bond is hardly better. The thing
itself is to be often met with on the Continent, and it is almost
unknown here. But it would be worth introducing, as the effect of it is
very good.