Brick yard, Rotherham, South Yorkshire
RWD Brickwork Limited designs and builds the brick fabric of homes and small commercial premises across Rotherham, and it runs every job from its own yard at 22 Warren Avenue, Rawmarsh, Rotherham - S62 7JQ, United Kingdom (GB). The yard holds the gauged bricks, the lime mixes and the line pins that each crew needs before a single course is set out. That control over material is what keeps the coursing true, the joints crisp and the price honest. See how the crews work →
Course rail with mix tags
Trowel board at rest
Sand bed gauge
Six jobs on the yard rail
Every slip on this rail is a job type that RWD Brickwork Limited is set up to price, plan and finish. Each one starts in the yard, where the bricks are sorted, the mix is gauged and the line pins are checked before the first course leaves the ground.
Boundary and garden walls are built in stretcher bond on a concrete footing, with engineering bricks below ground and a chosen facing brick above. Piers are set at intervals that suit the run, and every wall is levelled from a line pin at the yard gate so the rise stays flat over long spans.
Garden wall detail →Stacks that have lost their flaunching or gone soft at the corbel are rebuilt from the roof line up. The crew matches the existing brick, reinstates the soldier course and fits a new pot and cowl, working from scaffold that is rigged and struck inside one booking.
Chimney rebuild detail →Old chimney breasts are opened back to a working recess with a new lintel and a laid brick back. The work is cut rather than smashed, so the surrounding plaster survives and the finished opening reads as original.
Fireplace detail →Mortar joints are raked to a consistent depth, dusted and packed with a lime mix that suits the age of the wall. The crew works a wall in cycles, so no face dries before it is finished and the joint profile stays uniform.
Repointing detail →Driveway and patio beds are excavated, edged with kerb and laid on a compacted sand bed. The crew sets the fall away from the house and cuts the closing course by hand so the edges sit tight.
Paving bed detail →Where a wall has been patched badly, the yard finds a brick that matches the original in size, colour and texture. Samples are laid dry against the wall before any order is placed, so the repair never announces itself.
Brick match detail →RWD Brickwork Limited opens its spring laying window in March, and the yard books the first chimney and repointing crews before the frost leaves the ground.
How the yard works
The company started as a two-person repointing crew and grew around a simple idea: keep the material and the people in one place. Today the yard at 22 Warren Avenue, Rawmarsh holds pallets of matched brick, bags of lime and sand in separate bays, and a rack of line pins that are checked before every job. A foreman walks each survey with a gauging rod and a sample board, then writes the mix and the bond onto the job slip.
That discipline matters most on older stock. A Victorian terrace in Rotherham is usually built from a soft red that has been repointed in cement at some point, and the cement has trapped water inside the wall. Our answer is to rake out the hard pointing, let the wall dry and lay a lime mix that moves with the brick. It is slower work, and it is the only way the wall survives another fifty years.
Because the firm also sits inside the computer integrated systems design field, the crews carry measured drawings and photo records for every elevation. The office keeps a digital model of each wall it has touched, which means a client can come back in five years and we can still say which brick was used and where it came from. Nothing is left to memory.
Services in plain words
The six services are not a menu of extras. They are the routines the crews repeat week after week, and each one is described in full on the services page. Here is the short version, with the detail behind each link.
A garden wall is a small structure with a long life, so the footing matters more than the face. We dig to a firm base, pour a strip footing and build two courses of engineering brick before the facing starts. Piers are tied into the run, coping is bedded on a weak mix and the wall is left with a clean joint. Read more
A stack leaks at the top long before the house notices. We strip the flaunching, check the corbel and rebuild the upper courses with matched brick, then bed a new pot and cowl. Where the stack is leaning, the crew rebuilds from the roof line rather than patching over movement. Read more
Opening an old fireplace is a structural job done slowly. We cut a slot for a new lintel, prop the breast, remove the infill and brick the back of the recess. The surround and hearth are protected throughout, and the opening is left ready for a stove or an open fire. Read more
Repointing is a cycle, not a sweep. A bay is raked, brushed, wetted and pointed in one pass so the mortar cures together. We judge the mix from the wall, not from a bag, and we never point a wall that is holding water until it has had time to dry. Read more
A paving bed is a drainage decision as much as a finish. We set the excavation depth from the kerb line, lay a compacted sub-base and a screeded sand bed, then cut the closing course by hand. Edging is bedded in concrete so the field cannot creep. Read more
Matching a brick is part science and part patience. The yard keeps a sample wall of reclaimed and current stocks, and we lay candidate bricks dry against the original before ordering. Size, colour and texture all have to agree, or the repair will read as a patch. Read more
Yes. The yard is in Rawmarsh and most work is within South Yorkshire, but crews travel across the region for chimney and repointing projects that suit the schedule.
In most cases, yes. We bring samples to the wall and lay them dry before ordering, and we keep a written record of the match so later repairs can follow the same source.
By measured area and by the condition of the joints. A soft lime wall that has been pointed in cement needs more raking, so the survey sets the rate after a test patch.
Call +14407901811 or email brick@rwdbrick.lat. A foreman will arrange a yard visit and walk the elevation with you before any price is written.