Masonry is one of the conventional materials that is being used throughout the world due to its accessibility, functionality and cost but they fail in earthquakes mainly due to their low tensile and shear resistance. The objective of this investigation is to study the effectiveness of GFRP composite retrofitting on the behaviour of masonry wallettes and shear triplets that are cast with low stiffness table moulded bricks and high stiffness cement mortar through experimental and finite element study. Experiments were conducted on masonry wallettes under compression in different orientations and triplets under shear. Finite element models for the analysis of wallettes and shear triplets is developed using the FE software ABAQUS and validated with the experimental data. The concepts of macromodeling with smeared crack concrete model for masonry wallettes and micromodeling with the elastic properties of brick and mortar for shear triplets are used for the analysis. The changes in deformational capacity and ultimate load resistance are calculated for varying thickness and fiber orientations of GFRP composites. Based on this study, it is concluded that the strength and axial stiffness of the wallettes under compression and strength of shear triplets is increased due to external bonding of GFRP composites. The comparison of finite element and experimental results proved that macromodeling can be used to study behaviour of masonry wallettes retrofitted with GFRP composites and micromodeling is feasible for the analysis of small scale specimens such as triplets. © 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.