can some one date this fire place for me?

[robgil]

we had this horrid fire place in the living room and lovely cement rendered walls on either side.

the render sounded hollow so i had a look behind it and found out it was on batton and wire gauze , also looking up the chimney it was fairly obvious that a bigger fire place stood behind this one. off came the new fire place and off came the render as my mate dave here watches. :lol:

and this is what we have now. it doesnt look as old as the rest of the house and it has been rendered in lime and animal hair plaster at some point. we have heard that it was built at a later date due to the old one collapsing but i cannot be sure of that.
can anyone put a date on this fire place? the flue gets quite narrow fairly quickly above the mouth.

 

[Penners]

Judging from the brick sizes and the slightly arched steel lintel (if that's what it is), then - wild guess - Victorian. It might even have held a small range at one time

 

[christianb]

I's agree with Penners on that. I had something similar and I know that there had been a range in there at one time.

However, the original fireplace (the house dates from the early 1700's) was much, much bigger (an inglenook, for all intents) and had been reduced in size with brickwork just like yours. As such, there might be a monster lurking behind there somewhere!! Problem is, if that's the case they might have tied the new brickwork into the original structure or even added it to shore the damn thing up!

C.

 

[robgil]

cheers guys. i dont think there is anything more hiding in there as it is an external chimney and it looks to be all there is. the lintel is indeed steel and i was told that it could have been made from an old cart wheel?
the house is 16c and there is an inglenook in the corner of the dining room , its been boxed in with cupboards , cement render and a stud wall sectioning off a small cloak room and the stairs. both fireplaces look as though they require a lot of work to get them up to scratch.

lots of cement render on brick on this one , not too sure how to remove it without defacing the old bricks. who ever put all this together did like to use more cement than usual and not much sand , its rock hard and very hard to work with.