Opus spicatum

Opus spicatum, literally "spiked work," is a type of masonry construction used in Roman and medieval times. It consists of bricks, tiles or cut stone laid in a herringbone pattern.

Opus spicatum paving in Trajan's Market, Rome.
Wall in opus spicatum.

Uses

Its usage was generally decorative and most commonly it served as a pavement, though it was also used as an infill pattern in walls, as in the striking base of the causeway leading up to the gate tower at Tamworth Castle. Unless the elements run horizontally and vertically, it is inherently weak, since the oblique angles of the elements tend to spread the pattern horizontally under compression.

Firebacks
Fireplace at Usk Castle

Herringbone work, particularly in stone, is also used to make firebacks in stone hearths. Acidic flue gases tend to corrode lime mortar, so a finely-set herringbone could remain intact with a minimum of mortar used. Usk Castle has several fine examples. The herringbone pattern produces opposing shear plane faces, increasing the relative surface area and therefore rendering it a more sound design for mortar and brick.

Examples

The herringbone method was used by Filippo Brunelleschi in constructing the dome of the Cathedral of Florence (Santa Maria del Fiore).[1]

Herringbone brickwork was also a feature of Gothic Revival architecture.

gollark: The powerline adapter in my room has stopped working, due to it bending an ethernet cable at some horrible angle for two years due to poor ethernet port placement, so now I get to enjoy *less* than 300KB/s WiFi.
gollark: It has to for the EFI system partition which is probably what you wiped.
gollark: Unfortunately, things may be moving away from this. We're in a good place now where most high-performance devices are *relatively* open and support approximately the same standards for boot and whatever, but in many areas ARM is beginning to take over with its general locked-down-ness and utterly awful mess of incompatible boot systems.
gollark: Oh no, imagine being able to use things as general-purpose computers!
gollark: As far as I know they only added Linux support initially so it would be considered a computer for tax purposes, or something similarly stupid.

See also
  • Roman concrete, also known as Opus caementicium – Building material used in construction during the late Roman Republic and Empire
  • Roman architecture

References
  1. Mueller, Tom (February 10, 2014). "Mystery of Florence's Cathedral Dome May Be Solved". National Geographic Society. Retrieved 31 December 2014.

Opus caementicium roman walls

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