Matching an existing brick
How to get close to existing brickwork on an extension, restoration or infill, and what makes a match difficult.
An exact match is rarely possible, and usually not the target anyway.
What you are after is brickwork that belongs.
Existing brickwork has been weathering for decades. It carries dirt, lichen, rain staining and a century of sunlight. A brand-new brick that matches it perfectly on day one is matching the aged appearance, and will drift apart as it weathers on its own schedule. The better question is which new brick will sit comfortably alongside the old one now, and continue to as both age.
What we need from you.
The quality of a match depends almost entirely on the quality of the information. Five minutes on site saves a fortnight of samples that were never going to work.
Photographs in daylight
Several, from different distances, without flash. One close enough to read the texture, one far enough to show the blend across a wall.
A loose brick if you can
A spare from the site, or one from an area being opened up, is worth more than any photograph. A broken half still shows the body colour.
Course height over a metre
Measure across a metre and divide, rather than measuring one brick. This tells us the format — and whether it is imperial.
The mortar
Colour and joint profile. Matching the mortar often does more for the result than matching the brick.
Where and how much
An extension read alongside the original needs a closer match than a rear elevation nobody sees together.
Anything unusual
Special shapes, banding, arches, decorative courses. These are the long-lead items and the ones that constrain the choice.
What makes a match difficult.
Some matches are straightforward. A common London stock or a red multi from a still-operating works can usually be got close. Others are genuinely hard, and it is better to know which you are dealing with early.
Local clays produce local colours, and many of the works that supplied a Victorian terrace closed decades ago. Where the original clay is no longer quarried, no manufacturer can reproduce it exactly — the best available answer is a close relative rather than a twin.
Where an exact match is not available, reclaimed brick or a deliberate contrast are both legitimate answers.
| Difficulty | Why |
|---|---|
| Imperial sizes | 73mm and similar will not course with standard 65mm work |
| Closed works | The original clay is no longer available |
| Heavy weathering | You are matching decades of dirt, not a manufactured colour |
| Handmade faces | Variation by definition — there is no single target |
| Specials | Purpose-made shapes, long lead, matched separately |
Ways of solving it.
Closest new brick
Usually the right answer. A current product selected to sit alongside the original, accepting that the new work will read as new for a few years and then settle.
Reclaimed
Genuinely old brick of the right period. Matches immediately, but availability, quantity and consistent quality are all constraints — and durability needs checking.
Deliberate contrast
Rather than a near-miss, a considered difference. Frequently what conservation officers prefer, since it reads honestly as new work.
A near-miss is the one outcome worth avoiding. Brickwork that is almost the same reads as a mistake; brickwork that is clearly different reads as a decision.
Send us the photographs.
Matching is one of the things we are asked for most. We work across manufacturers throughout the UK and Europe rather than one range, so a match is a search of the market rather than a search of a single catalogue. Send photographs, a course measurement and a note on where the work is going, and we will come back with the closest options actually available — and tell you honestly if none of them are close enough.