page_title: Brickwork
section_title: Rat-trap bond
hierarchical_section_title: Brickwork / Load-bearing bonds / Courses of mixed rowlocks and shiners / Rat-trap bond
caption_attribution_description: English: Red brick wall in rat-trap bond near Angelsea Road, Wivenhoe, Essex, England
context_page_description: Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called courses are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall.
  Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by size. For example, in the UK a brick is defined as a unit having dimensions less than 337.5x225x112.5mm and a block is defined as a unit having one or more dimensions greater than the largest possible brick.
  Brick is a popular medium for constructing buildings, and examples of brickwork are found through history as far back as the Bronze Age. The fired-brick faces of the ziggurat of ancient Dur-Kurigalzu in Iraq date from around 1400 BC, and the brick buildings of ancient Mohenjo-daro in Pakistan were built around 2600 BC. Much older examples of brickwork made with dried bricks may be found in such ancient locations as Jericho in Judea, Çatal Höyük in Anatolia, and Mehrgarh in Pakistan. These structures have survived from the Stone Age to the present day.
  Brick dimensions are expressed in construction or technical documents in two ways as co-ordinating dimensions and working dimensions.
context_section_description: Rat-trap bond (also Chinese bond) substantially observes the same pattern as Flemish bond, but consists of rowlocks and shiners instead of headers and stretchers. This gives a wall with an internal cavity bridged by the rowlocks, hence the reference to rat-traps.
caption: Brick wall laid in rat-trap bond photographed near Angelsea Road, Wivenhoe, Essex, England.
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