Brickwork & Landscaping in Sible & Castle Hedingham

Home of the Hedingham red

These two Colne valley villages have a brick heritage of their own. In the nineteenth century the Hedinghams were a centre of brick-making, and their warm red bricks were used across the area and well beyond. Many houses and walls in both villages are built of them.

Castle Hedingham, clustered below its Norman keep, is the more historic of the two, with a conservation area of timber-framed and Georgian brick houses. Sible Hedingham is larger, strung along the main road, with a wide range of twentieth-century housing as well as older cottages.

What that means for repairs

Old Hedingham bricks are soft, richly coloured and slightly irregular. Replacing them with a standard modern red looks wrong. For repairs we look for reclaimed bricks of the same character and point in a lime mortar to suit, so that the new work reads as part of the old wall.