Fire window

[elm]

Hello all - just popping out of long lurkiness to show you this little window which lets light into the inglenook. A previous owner has added a window more suited to a municipal toilet, but there we are - it's not staying The small lintel stone turns out to be a lump of concrete - my first thought was that the stone above and to the right was the original lintel and that the window had been moved, but of course the big stone beneath means that can't be the case. In fact, there doesn't seem to be much room for any sort of lintel I always thought that the fire window had been there from the start, but now I'm starting to wonder .....

 

[LadyArowana]

I am no sort of expert on these things, but it doesn't look like the "lintel" is doing very much, I thought the idea was that it's ends were well supported on each side and this one looks a little bit mean in terms of overhang. As it's concrete too I think you are right to at least suspect that it was something put in later. The foam stuff is a thing pf beauty too isn't it? assuming it is foam of course. I found something like that in the loft as I was clearing out a bunch of junk, happily ignored it. Sometime later the electrician casually asked me if I wasn't worried about the wasp nest His Lordships was very worried and said to me "thank goodness you didn't poke it" I said "I'm a girl, I don't need to go and fiddle with stuff just because it's there"

 

[DJH]

It looks to me elm that it's been inserted well after the wall was built as can be witnessed by the amount of small infill stones.

Doug

 

[Penners]

I am no sort of expert on these things, but it doesn't look like the "lintel" is doing very much, I thought the idea was that it's ends were well supported on each side

Aristocracy is obviously no barrier to expert knowledge.

I'd be very surprised if that window/opening is original. Everything about it suggests to me that it's been put in long after the wall was built, and probably fairly recently. It's a monstrosity that deserves only consignment to the fires of hell. :wink:

 

[elm]

This has got me thinking ..... to me this would suggest that the inglenook or 'Simne Fawr' isn't original either? Its big, with a massive oak bressumer, and resting on that is another older looking bressumer. Above that there is a lot of stone corbelling - everything looks like it's been there for a very long time. I'm beginning to wonder just how old the core of the house actually is. It's part of a scattered group of farmsteads sharing variations of the same name which are first mentioned in the early 1400's, though I don't suppose it that old

 

[jocelyn plummer]

[

same name which are first mentioned in the early 1400's, though I don't suppose it that old

It could be-- take your time with that fireplace!

 

[Penners]

If the house is that old, one way to ascertain whether the chimney stack is original might be to examine the roof timbers. Are any of them smoke-blackened? If so, then it may be that the house was originally built without a chimney, and with a central hearth. The smoke would simply have risen to the roof, venting either through seepage or possibly through gablets in the top on the gable ends.

None of this is definitive, but it's worth investigating.