The Portland Inn Project have developed a brand new product, as part of our social enterprise. Ceramic artists Joanne Mills and Sarah Fraser have collaborated with PIP artist Anna Francis to create a garden ware for Portland St & beyond, The Fern Brick.
THE FERN BRICK
During the challenges of 2020, as all of us got used to staying closer to home, people began to take much more of an interest in outdoor spaces. In the Portland St Area, this means terraced house back yards became more important than ever. Some neighbours began to grow plants, like never before.
To celebrate this, and in recognition that we all have dark corners in our outdoor spaces, we have designed a special Fern Brick, to encourage shade-loving plants into our yards, and gardens and to increase the green credentials of our neighbourhoods.
The bricks have been made on our local green space, with our community, where in the 1870’s, there was a brick factory. Just up the road at Brownhill Tileries, Burslem, The Garrett Brothers are documented as having manufactured the Watsonian Fern Brick for little more than 18 months from the end of 1859.
The patent registered in 1859 described them as ‘Novel and Artistic Bricks…for the reception of ferns, mosses and other plants.’ Of these Fern Bricks, very few remain, and it is undocumented as to how many were made in that time.
The Portland Fern Brick is made and installed in 2 pieces, a base brick, with a hollow and decorative pocket for planting and drainage hole, and a hollowed top brick. Fern Bricks are designed to be compatible with an ordinary house brick (one Fern Brick is the same height as 3 bricks).
We began the process of prototyping the Portland Fern Brick in 2021, and our first set of Fern Bricks was launched at the British Ceramics Biennial that year. Though beautiful, we knew that the prototype needed to be refined, to make the structural qualities of the brick more robust, and to decrease any weak points where the bowl-shaped protrusion on the front of the brick joins the main body of the brick.
In 2023, Sarah, Jo and Anna worked together again to refine the design, and then worked with the community of the Portland St Area to make a new set of bricks, which have been installed in a permanent brick bench on the street where the bricks were made.
Our Fern Bricks are made of traditional Brick Clay, sourced from Ibstocks, plus any waste accumulated from other ceramics processes undertaken, ensuring the product is as environmentally sustainable as possible.
While the bricks are designed with Ferns in mind, any manner of plants can be grown in them, considering the correct aspect.
We are currently working on the production of bricks and the cost, in order for people to buy the Fern Brick and/or commission their own Fern Brick Structure!