Summary (by AI): I left Wokingham with a newfound appreciation for the town’s character and history after exploring its beautiful architecture and learning the fascinating heritage of its locally made bricks.
Blog: If you’ve ever stopped to look closely at a really high-quality, dense, dark red brick, you might have noticed a small indentation on the top. In the trade, that little dip is called the "frog." And if you look even closer inside the frog of certain historic bricks, you might spot three stamped initials: LHB.
Those letters stand for Lawrence Henry Berkshire.
Lawrence Henry Berkshire was the man who established the LHB brick company. Based in Berkshire, his firm became nationwide famous for producing some of the highest quality bricks in the country.
But LHB's success wasn't just due to good business sense; it was also a matter of incredibly lucky geology. The local clay in Berkshire is practically legendary for brickmaking. Interestingly, it's famous not because it is "pure," but because it is wonderfully imperfect. If you try to make bricks out of chemically perfect clay, they tend to warp, twist, and bend out of shape inside the kiln. To survive the heat, the clay needs a bit of natural grit. The clay around Berkshire contains just the right amount of sand, giving it the perfect composition to bake into incredibly dense, sturdy bricks.
This specific chemical makeup is what gives the classic LHB brick its beautiful, deep red color. But the story gets even better.
Back in the day, long before we had modern, computer-controlled kilns, heat distribution was pretty uneven. Bricks stacked near the very edges of the kiln were often starved of oxygen during the firing process. Even though they were made of the exact same clay, this oxygen deprivation triggered a different chemical reaction. The sand deposits within the clay would melt, turning the bricks a striking greyish-blue with an almost mirrored, silvery sheen.
Remarkably, this process also fused the surface, making the bricks completely waterproof.
Initially, these grey-blue anomalies were cast aside as "offcuts" or waste because they didn’t match the intended red aesthetic. But it didn't take long for clever bricklayers to realize their value. Builders started using them to create beautiful, contrasting decorative patterns. Eventually, these accidental waterproof bricks became highly prized and sought after in their own right.
All of this fascinating history was swirling around in my head on a recent trip through Wokingham. Wokingham is a lovely little Berkshire market town that I’ve driven through dozens of times, always telling myself, "I really ought to stop here." (In fact, a friend of mine just moved close by, and we’ve been threatening to meet up there for beers and a curry—a plan I definitely need to make happen soon!)
When I finally stopped to explore, my research led me straight to Rose Street.
Rose Street boasts a fantastic lineup of Georgian and Edwardian properties built from that traditional Berkshire red brick. I was particularly on the lookout for Number 25. From the street, it looks like a relatively modern building (well, modern in the context of what’s hiding behind it). It features a gorgeous red brick facade laid in a traditional Flemish Bond—a pattern that alternates long "stretchers" with short, exposed "headers" in every row.
But behind that handsome brick facade lies Wokingham’s oldest house: a 14th-century timber-framed building. Inside, it still holds the scars, stories, and structural bones of six or seven centuries of life.
It turns out that as people grew wealthier throughout history, a major status symbol was to cover up their older, medieval timber homes with a grand, modern brick front. It’s a bit like the historical equivalent of pebble-dashing, but on a much more grandiose scale, using beautiful Edwardian and Victorian brickwork to give an old house a fashionable new face.
Funnily enough, my pre-trip research didn’t even mention Wokingham Town Hall, but it completely stole the show. It is a gorgeous, incredible building constructed with that signature local brick. When you stand back and look at it, you can't help but admire the sheer craftsmanship. This isn't just a simple, monotonous run of standard bricks. It’s a masterclass in detail—filled with different colors, sharp pointed accents, rounded curves, and textured edges.
This is the beauty of what I call the "ABC process." It forces you to slow down, stop, and actually look at the things we usually walk right past. When you take a moment to look at the fabric of a town, you gain a much deeper appreciation for where you are.
And Wokingham's local bricks keep some incredibly prestigious company. LHB bricks have a long and illustrious history, popping up in some of the most significant architecture in the world.
For instance, they were chosen to build the Royal Albert Hall. If you’ve ever stood outside that iconic London venue and admired its massive, sweeping expanse of uniform, beautiful red brick, you’re looking at LHB craftsmanship. They were selected because the sheer scale of the project demanded absolute consistency in quality and color.
Even 10 Downing Street shares this local DNA. Over centuries of renovations and repairs, a significant portion of its famous brickwork has been replaced with none other than Berkshire bricks.
It was a brilliant little visit—a reminder of how much history is hidden right under our noses, baked into the very walls of our towns.
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