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As a soldier arch is purely decorative rather than load bearing, first position a concrete lintel or rolled steel joist across the middle or back of the opening. If the span of the opening is less than 1.8m, you can easily reinforce the lintel on site by the addition of steel rods in the mortar mix.

Once the lintel is in place, position a piece of 50mm angle iron in front of it. Make sure that this is long enough to bear on the brickwork on each side of the opening by at least 150mm and that the angle faces inwards away from the lintel to support one edge of the brickwork across the arch.

The angle iron alone will not bear the whole weight of the arch during construction, so the next step is to build a simple timber former and place it across the top of the opening directly below the arch (fig. A). Get a piece of 25mm thick timber the same width as the soffit (the underside of the proposed arch) and cut it to the exact length of the opening.

To hold the former in position, cut two 15mm square supports the same width as the soffit from off cuts of batten and secure them with concrete nails on each side of the opening (fig. A). Then place the former on top of the supports, check it carefully with a spirit level, and adjust as necessary before continuing.

Now you can start work on the arch itself. First measure across the opening and note the proposed position of the bricks (do this on both sides of the wall if you are erecting two arches). Using this information, try to place the key (or middle-brick) directly over the center of the opening and so avoid having to place a shorter cut brick at one end of the arch.

Mortar each brick into place care­fully and place a straightedge across the face of the wall while you are building to ensure that the arch is correctly aligned. When you have finished, leave the mortar to set for three to four days. Then carefully remove the former and knock away its supporting timbers.

Finally, point the brickwork across the face and soffit of the arch. If you are fitting a new arch into older brickwork, try to point some way around it so that the new mortar is less obvious.