Reinforced brickwork retaining walls

Introduction The Victorian engineers built literally miles of mass brickwork retaining walls. Such walls relied on their dead weight to resist the overturning forces and tensile stresses caused by the retained earth, or other material. But the walls were of relatively massive thickness, under‐exploited brick‐work's compressive strength, and were structurally restricted by brickwork's low tensile strength. The advent of the more cost‐effective reinforced concrete walls saw their vitual eclipse. Reinforcing the brickwork could result in a come‐back.