Fireplace with a history

[JW]

Hello all,

We recently purchased a 1890's ground floor flat with lovely period features. However, the kitchen was a real mess and begged to be removed - which we did with much pleasure.
Anyway, halfway down the work we found the remains of a fireplace behind one of the kitchen-cabinets, which is always a great surprise.

From what I can see it used to be quit a substantial fireplace which, for some reason has been reduced in size to fit a smaller (cast iron) fireplace we have in the bedrooms. And even more recently somebody decided to remove this and place a awfull kitchen in front of it.

My question is what the original, big, fireplace may have looked like. A second question is whether it is safe to remove the 'new' bricks used to fill up the fireplace. The big slab of stone above the original fireplace suggest this could be done as it is probably supposed to carry all the weight above it.


some pictures:

View of the front, showing the remains of the smaller fireplace and bricked in big fireplace with substantial trapezium-shaped piece of stone.

Same view, with a small opening I made out of curiosity.

Side view, with a somewhat better view of the support stone (can't think of the official name...)

I could squeeze my camera in the hole I made and there seem to be more bricks to fit a smaller fire place.

The plumber said there are some old pipes going towards the fireplace, probably used to heat the water in the old days...

thanks for your help!

 

[middi]

The original fireplace could have been a simple square or rectangular opening with a stone lintel above to secure the opening, the cast iron fireplace front could have been added at a later stage. You should be able to tell by looking closely at the various soot lines behind any later additions.

You can certainly remove all the later "new modifications" and restore it as it was and if you intend to use it as a " working" fireplace you have to check that this is possible mainly due to the fact that the property has been converted into flats and lots of other "modifications" could have taken place on the chimney stack.

 

[arl]

In 1890 it may well have had a cast iron range if the room was originally used as a kitchen

 

[andrew gayton]

safe to rip out all of the infill...... agreed that the space originally would have held a small range...........

p.s remove everything from the room to avoid a fine layer of dust on E V E R Y T H I N G..... during the work, keep a 'nose' out for old cooking smells................. and keep an 'eye' out for bone apple corers, bits of pottery etc etc.

 

[plumbers mate]

Inappropriate fireplace to fit in fireplace opening .....
http://i169.photobucket.com/albums/u235/nhef1/POR060391_02.jpg[img]

I'm sure I've done a pic on here before but photobucket didn't know me and I can't remember if this is correct.

 

[Moo]

Could you tell us a little more about the house itself?
Does it have a basement (ie, kitchen and servants' quarters)?
Have any of the ground floor rooms been divided in the course of the conversion? (Skirting boards and cornices can often give a clue).

If the answer to both these questions is a 'yes', then there's every chance that the room that now houses the kitchen was originally a reception room.

On the other hand, if there's no basement then you may be looking at the original kitchen. In which case the opening may well have housed a substantial range (a nice example can be seen in episodes of 'The Good Life').
Once new-fangled things like gas cookers arrived, the owners would probably have modernised their kitchen by ripping out the redundant (and passe) range and replaced it with something small just for heating the room.

 

[skier-hughes]

After your image link this should end it [/img] you have the / missing

 

[andrew gayton]

moo - being a norwich girl, you may have seen small ranges that were used in smaller and terraced houses?.... i have heard stories that if the household cook of such properties needed to use a bigger oven, th elocal baker would do a warm up for a small fee......? not sure how true that actually is.....

 

[Moo]

Nor am I, Andrew. But it sounds such a sensible arrangement that it must be true.

 

[andrew gayton]

at my house (late 18th c flint single pile with catslide extension) i unearthed (literally) a 'range' that was only 18 inch square max and the opposing flue had a fixed crane for bigger pot boiling............ both stank of lardy fat stuff.

 

[Nemesis]

I have a small free-standing range, which is called a kitchener, very small firebox, one small oven, two hotplates.


In many places there was a communal village oven - still there in Corbridge, and I thnk Clara Vale may still have one too - certainly in use into well into the last century.

 

[JW]

Thanks for all your input

@ Middi
There are large quantities of cement used to cover up the bricks, but I'll try to uncover more tonight.
I'm afraid though that the vertical stones have been damaged and will be damaged more by removing the cement.
There is a nice draft in the fire place, I think it still should work fine, but we'll have it checked in due time.

@ Andrew
Dust is no problem, we've been covered by dust since the start of the renovation!

@Moo
The house is the ground floor of a standard 4 story tenement building in central Edinburgh. No basement. There is a big slab of concrete in front oif the fireplace and rests on an foundation underneath the whole fireplace.
The livingroom is located elsewhere and still has the original black fireplace. I'm pretty sure the room has always been the kitchen and the layout has not been altered as far as I can tell (still has the tiny bathroom).

I'm tempted to open up the whole thing and leave the natural (non-brick) stones exposed. However, I'll need to think of something to stick in the hole, a range cooker is not an option as we just ordered a new kitchen!

 

[JW]

Update:

I removed some of the stones and was surprised with the total size of the fire place. A small channel was made to accommodate the small fire place. Funnely the sides were filled with a very light pumice like stones, probably to protect the stones against the heat.

As suspected the vertical stones supporting the lintel were damaged and removing the concrete doesn't help.

Some pictures again:

Front view:

view of lintel with damaged stone underneath.

I'll continue the excavation tomorrow!

 

[Moo]

It might be an idea to have some acrow props handy, just in case.

 

[piper]

In many places there was a communal village oven - still there in Corbridge, and I thnk Clara Vale may still have one too - certainly in use into well into the last century.

My grandmother (1887-1957), whom I can remember well, though this story was passed on through my mother, was a girl in Stamford. There, the "Sunday roast" was taken to the baker's to be cooked. The husband would normally do this job, and then go to the pub. A child was sent later with a jug of batter to pour round the meat to make "Yorkshire pudding" in the local style, and also to fetch husband from the pub. A related sory told of the man who would reel out of the pub to yell at his wife while she was playing her concertina in the Salvation Army outdoor service. "Come home, woman, and cook me dinner!" he shouted, and she would carry on playing, eyes ecstatically raised to heaven, exclaiming "O Lord, forgive him!"

To return to the topic. We had almost the same experience. Dreadful melamine kitchen units removed and cement render knocked off to reveal stone lintel over big fireplace. I took out the bricks which filled up the space, without anything collapsing, as well as over eighty bags of rubble and dirt which filled the recess. (I took them all to the tip in the back of the car - but not all at once!) This gave another few feet of space in the kitchen which we didn't know we had. My wife (I'm glad to say!) cleaned the stone lintel of the black bitumen stuff it was covered with, using Strippers of Sudbury's excellent solvent. As the Aga is on the opposite wall, where it performs a much better job of heating the next room, we had the kitchen floor tiling extended back into the opening, using reclaimed quarry tiles, and it's hard now to see where the original floor ends and the new bit begins. The recess now contains the fridge (freestanding) plus a unit with drawers and the whole is covered with a long beech surface bought from Habitat and laboriously cut to fit along the whole wall and fit round and into the fireplace. Sounds strange, but looks very good. If you don't want to use the fire, you could perhaps do something similar? It makes for a much more spacious kitchen. The chimney is still there, but ventilated and capped, and so far there is no trouble with it, in fact it's much better now because it's ventilated, whereas before it wasn't and the rubble filling the recess, plus the wall in front, was very damp. NB the house is not listed.

 

[Me!]

moo - being a norwich girl, you may have seen small ranges that were used in smaller and terraced houses?.... i have heard stories that if the household cook of such properties needed to use a bigger oven, th elocal baker would do a warm up for a small fee......? not sure how true that actually is.....

Not just in Norwich, but in France as well - http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/potatoes-boulangeres-with-rosemary,1154,RC.html

 

[rogerh]

This is my basement (Georgian townhouse, c.1760):

I plan to turn this room back into a kitchen.

And here's one someone made earlier, two houses down:

(Anyone recognise it?)

 

[Willmat]

haven't been but how about Spitalfields?

 

[Nemesis]

Bath... it's not Sally Lunn's... nor indeed No 1 Royal Crescent...

Maybe here? I haven't seen this one ...

http://www.bath.org/hotel/windsor.htm

 

[Michelle]

This is my basement (Georgian townhouse, c.1760):

I plan to turn this room back into a kitchen.



How lovely; lucky you.