280 BRICK AND STONE. 



Caen stone was imported from Normantly for the 

 production of the handsomer and more important 

 ecclesiastical edifices, and in hiter days the Hath 

 stone and the Portland stone have been freely 

 employed by architects for private mansions, or 

 for the great clubs whose handsome row of palaces 

 now lines the long and imposing front of Pall 

 Mall. London Bridge is constructed of Dartmoor 

 granite from the slopes of I ley Tor ; and several 

 important city buildings have been erected from 

 the famous cold blue stone of the Aberdeen quar- 

 ries. But such expensive and far-fetched materials 

 could never of course be commonly employed in 

 ordinary domestic street-architecture ; and even 

 at tlie West End London houses have usually been 

 constructed of brick only, and that often of infe- 

 rior quality. The use of this sadly inadequate 

 material in the appropriate hands of the jerry- 

 builder has largely contributed to depress and 

 stunt the development of English architecture, 

 and especially to give it a wrong direction. 



That wrong direction may be particularly noticed 

 in the unfortunate invention of stucco, which is, 

 in fact, a sham device for making a brick building 

 pretend externally to be a stone one, or at least 

 look as much like stone as it possibly can. For 

 some generations the one desire of the British 

 builder seems to Ijave been to disregard the natural 

 capabilities of brick, the material to which he was 



