What English bond is
English bond alternates a course of stretchers, showing the long face of each brick, with a course of headers, showing the short end. In the header courses the bricks run through the thickness of the wall, tying it into a single mass.
Walls of all kinds use it. The former apple store at the Yanagita Residence in Hokkaido, from the late Taisho period, is described as a two-storey brick building 7.2 by 5.5 metres facing the street to the north, Kirizuma-zukuri and pantiled, its outer walls in this bond with a dentil cornice, an early example of a brick-built apple store.
It tells most where walls must be thick. The brick cell at the Abashiri prison museum in Hokkaido, built in 1912, is described as a single-storey brick building 3.74 by 2.83 metres, gabled and pantiled, its walls 0.4 metres thick in this bond with doorways front and back.
The brick wall at the former Horita Residence in Aichi Prefecture, built in 1912, is described as nineteen metres long and 2.4 metres high in this bond, with buttresses projecting inward every two metres and a corbelled brick moulding along the top.
Against Flemish bond and stretcher bond
One wall may use more than one. The fire wall at Koryuji in Hokkaido, built in 1910, is described as a brick wall enclosing the east side of the precinct and the western part of the north, the northern stretch in Flemish bond for about 104 metres at three metres high, the eastern stretch in this bond for about 50 metres at seven metres high, built to check the spread of fire and standing as a monument to a city that burned repeatedly.
Flemish bond alternates stretchers and headers within a single course rather than between courses, which reads quite differently. The Sashiki tunnel in Kumamoto Prefecture, built in 1903, has portal faces in that bond with shield-shaped voussoirs, Coping stone, string course and pilasters in stone dressed by Edokiri.
Curves call for Stretcher bond instead. Where a tunnel lining has to follow the curvature of an arch, a wall of stretchers alone answers better. Flat walls take this bond; curved work takes the other.
On site, read the courses one by one. Alternating courses of long and short faces make this bond; long and short alternating within a single course make Flemish; nothing but long faces makes stretcher bond.
References
- Agency for Cultural Affairs: Registered tangible cultural properties (structures)
- https://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkazai/shokai/yukei_kenzobutsu/toroku_yukei.html
- National Cultural Properties Database: Yanagita Residence former apple store, English bond with a dentil cornice
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00009249
- National Cultural Properties Database: Abashiri prison brick cell, walls 0.4 metres thick in English bond
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00009251
- National Cultural Properties Database: former Horita Residence brick wall, nineteen metres long and laid in English bond
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00011321
- National Cultural Properties Database: Koryuji fire wall, Flemish bond on one stretch and English bond on the other
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00009104
- National Cultural Properties Database: Sashiki tunnel, its portal dressed in chamfer-edged stone
- https://kunishitei.bunka.go.jp/bsys/maindetails/101/00003016
Last verified: 2026.09.11