Historically, humankind have built their homes and other buildings from the most readily available local materials, such as wood and stone. Brixton’s development from the early 19th century depended on a ready supply of local clay. But it may come as a surprise to learn that the name Brixton has nothing to do with bricks.

Brihtsige (or Brixi) was a Saxon lord, who is thought to have erected a boundary stone at the meeting place of the Moot or Hundred Court of Surrey (probably at the top of Brixton Hill). Hence its original 11th century Saxon name of Brixistane – centuries before villages and settlements formed round what is now Brixton, where woodlands gradually gave way to farmland and market gardens.

So how did Brixton come to live up to its confusing name?

The bricks that built Brixton 200 years ago were mainly yellow ‘London stock bricks’, fired locally from London clay. This is a compact, dense, infertile accumulation of river deposits. It would be dug out by hand, moulded into bricks, and then fired on site in huge smoky kilns.

The picture, dating from about 1860, shows excavations for brick earth close to Brixton windmill. The windmill itself would undoubtedly have been built in 1816 using local brick, but there is almost no visible evidence of the brick colour, because the outside of the windmill is protected by pitch and the inside is painted.

Many of Brixton’s 19th-century houses are built using Flemish bond, a pattern of brickwork involving alternate stretchers and headers. Different ‘bonds’ are used to create different strengths of construction, wall thicknesses and decorative effects.

On some 19th century houses in Brixton, a few red bricks (more expensive as they were probably transported by canal from the Midlands) were used to decorate the yellow brick facades and highlight building features. But all London’s buildings soon became encrusted with soot, their beauty restored only after the Clean Air Acts of the 1950s outlawed smoky fuels.

Like houses, windmills in different parts of England were built from the most readily available local materials. In London, this meant brick.

It is hard, under all the pitch, to spot any clear pattern to the brickwork of Brixton Windmill. We know the construction must have been sound for it to have lasted 200 years, and we know that there have been later repairs, possibly not using matching brick. This was an industrial structure, built to withstand strong forces, bear heavy loads, and keep the contents safe and dry, rather than for aesthetic purposes. Its beauty depends on its form and scale rather than on how artfully its bricks were laid.

So Hans Unger’s tile mosaic in Brixton tube station, ‘a ton of bricks’, may just be a visual pun, but it also expresses a great deal about Brixton’s history, in its own way.