Britain once taxed houses by their windows, so people bricked them up to save money

Introduced in 1696 to raise government revenue without a hated income tax, England's window tax charged homeowners based on how many windows their house had. Many simply bricked up windows to cut their bill, some bricked-up facades are still visible today, and the practice is widely credited as the origin of the phrase 'daylight robbery.'

— Historical event, Window tax — 1696-1851, England and Wales