For our July session we returned to the Somerset Brick and Tile Museum in Bridgwater.  We were last there five years ago so nearly all our members had not been there before.  The session was run for us by Marie from the South West Heritage Trust.

After an introductory talk, Marie took us on a short walk to look at different types of brickwork in some of the houses near the museum.  We also saw the remains of the Bridgwater glass kiln which must had looked amazing when it used to tower over the surrounding buildings.

When we got back to the museum we split up into three different groups for different activities.  One group made miniature bricks with Marie using old fashioned wooden brick moulds.  We carved our names or patterns onto our bricks so we’d know which was which.  These will be dried and fired by Marie and then returned to us at a later date.

The second group replicated the different types of brick bonds that we had seen in the buildings on our walk outside – using Lego!  Great fun!  The third group built structures out of large foam bricks and then shook the table they were on to see how they would withstand an earthquake.  We threaded broom handles down through the holes in the brick walls to reinforce them.

This was a fun session with a great variety of activities and by the end of it we knew a great deal more about the humble brick!  A big thank you to Marie for running this session for us.