portion 55 are placed precisely at the required height above the underlying bricks to define the correct thickness of mortar between courses the mortar dispenser is filled with mortar after being placed on the apparatus and as the apparatus is moved forward aligning bricks placed on the mortar bed overlying the previous course mortar contained within the dispenser will be applied to the bricks of the course being laid the knife edge 53 serving as it passes to cut the mortar at the required height and the curved formation of the wall 52 serving to return mortar cut above the required height to the body of mortar being continuously dispensed onto the bricks while the curved surface 54 and the end portion 55 serve to apply smoothing pressure to the mortar dispensed and also to apply pressure to the underlying bricks it has been found that this pressure obviates the need for any tapping or hammering of the newly laid bricks onto the underlying mortar bed and provides at least as strong a wall construction as would be achieved by that technique it will be seen in fig1 that the bottom of the side walls 48 of the mortar dispenser fit neatly between the channels 25 to define the lateral extent of the mortar bed automatically providing a raked joint if flush joints are required the mortar.