old stone fireplace

[Rosie]

I have found a large stone fireplace.It has no mantle as the stone is depressed into the wall.It is 65 inches wide, 64 in high and 20 in deep.I haven't found the bottom yet,it seems to be sandstone but it is breaking up.I don't know if i haven't gone deep enough or if it has just eroded. It was blocked up with stone and not bricks.Very odd as there is a bricked up fireplace next to it.I stood in the stone fireplace and looked into the brick one and there is no fireplace in there.
How can you date a fireplace?
I will try and add photos.It is very plain and looks a bit Tudor in style.Thanks Rosie :?

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Welcome.
Yes, we all love photos, lots please and we will try to advise, or at least have fun guessing.

 

[livias]

Get hold of a copy of "Period house fixtures and fittings" by Linda Hall. It ix a fascinating book and of great help in dating fireplaces, latches, cupboards, doors etc etc

 

[Rosie]

Found behind plaster board, 2nd picture shows stones removed, this is only half of the fire place,

 

[Rosie]

Found this in the living room, taken a layer out under the arch, can see the back of the chimney seems to be another course of brick work inside which looks like a column. Any ideas

 

[88v8]

Great find!
Two great finds. How exciting.

I presume you're taking that partition down.

Interesting article on stone consolidation here.
http://www2.rgu.ac.uk/schools/mcrg/miconsol.htm
Usually, degredation is an outdoor problem. If it appears to be of damp origins, maybe the flue and fireplace has been damp in the past.

When you've finished carefully cleaning the stonework, a conservation mason would be able to remake any parts that are excessively damaged. It won't make the whole thing look like new, but then we don't want new, do we? Be careful with the cleaning, sandstone is quite porous.
http://www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/informguide-sandstone.pdf

The absence of a mantle shelf ... perhaps there was a wooden shelf whose traces have been obliterated, or simply there wasn't one. I have seen flat fireplaces with no surround nor shelf.

That second fireplace, can't really see much in the photo, couple of thoughts;
- the relieving arch is very flat. It may have given concern in the past, I would be careful about removing support from beneath it.
- the original fire opening looks to have been reduced to fit a smaller fire. Perhaps it smoked. Or used too much coal. Or for fashion reasons. The reduction may have happened in more than one stage. You don't have to go back to the original; if that room will have a Victorian theme for instance - how old is the house? - then you could find a Victorian inert that fits.

Random thoughts.

Ivor

 

[Rosie]

Hi thanks a lot for the great info.
Yes I am taking the partition down but it will need a joist in. Annoyingly, it is a later addition as one brick thick but some ceiling beams rest on it. There was a staircase years ago and when it was taken out some idiot fastened beams to the partition. I have also found two old doorways.
I don't know how old the house is, maybe 1600's and I just wondered if the fireplace could date it.
I can't do much more in that room until the builder has sorted out a joist.
The other fireplace is in the sitting room. I had the chimney sweep in today, like you say the fireplace has been reduced many times to make it smaller.
Only just read this post but I have taken it back to the original brick kind of an arch. I might put a beam lintel underneath though. The brickwork is dirty so that is tomorrow's job plus all the other brickwork has bits of mortar on so I need to do that as well.
Thanks again, I have bought the period property book and when it arrives I will hopefully gain more info.
As I was taking the plaster, wallpaper etc off I found they had backed it with newspaper. The Yorkshire Post 1889 and it was fascinating, the price of things and job ads for servants etc.

 

[88v8]

Old newspapers. Super. Worth framing some of those pages if they're local?

The brick arch... is OK or it's not. If there's no sign of failure I wouldn't bother with an under-support.

The fireplace might give a clue to the dating but I doubt it would be very accurate. Styles persisted a long time.

Ivor

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Can I just check that the building isn't listed? or that if it is you have got listed building consent for the work you're doing?

 

[Rosie]

Hi no it's not listed, just an old farmhouse but I don't know exactly how old.

 

[mims&pip]

Hi Rosie and welcome

Lovely features you're uncovering there......I'm very envious! Btw, just in case you weren't aware, Gareth is our resident and very knowledgeable Conservation Officer......

Look forward to seeing more progress pics.

Mims x

 

[Gareth Hughes]

It's extremely difficult without seeing the whole building, or at least more of the context of the two rooms with the fireplaces in, but I'd accept a date of c1500-1600 for the older of the two fireplaces on the basis of the photos. The other fireplace is later, probably c.1800, and - as I'm fond of shouting and screaming on occasion - I doubt very much that the brickwork was ever meant to be exposed. Please don't overdo the unpicking and end up with a Flintstones cave.

 

[Lime]

Yes that is so true Gareth Hughes.
I've known a lot of people who have bought old houses and treated them like an archaeological dig.
Then within a year or two the house looks like a Barret box inside with almost nothing left of the original structure and no character save for a few curios.
But I'm not saying this thread is a case in point.

 

[plasticpigeon]

A few of people I know commented on the attractiveness of the semi circular brick arch that forms the builders opening in one of my chimney breasts, and my decision to put in an insert and chimney piece was not always met with approval. More and more brick is being rendered outside and exposed inside. I can only assume that is done now because it is different to how things were done in the past and people like to change things, often for no good reason.

 

[mims&pip]

I doubt very much that the brickwork was ever meant to be exposed. Please don't overdo the unpicking and end up with a Flintstones cave.

Hear hear, Gareth! The previous owner of our last (non-listed, Georgian thatched) house was a prime example of someone with the Flintstones mentality :roll: Luckily we rescued the place, but not before too much damage/exposure was done - leaving the once quite grand rooms with their original shutters that were always meant to be plastered, resembling hideous caves of bare stone. Just because it was thatched and happened to be located in a village, he assumed it should be presented as a lowly workers' cottage - not that there's anything wrong with these, a neighbouring property was an original 'hovel' type building of some 300 sq ft and suited the exposed stone finish (although that at least was limewashed) internally - but our 2500 sq ft, three storey, ashlar stone house was of a different breed

 

[88v8]

Mmm, that strikes a chord. Here we have exposed internal stone, which is at least leavened by some panels of wattle & daub . Before we moved in I had one wall of the dining room lime plastered with a bagged finish. Every evening in the sitting room I'm looking at a wall for which I intend the same treatment.
A modicum of internal stone is fine, but exposed brickwork other than in a fireplace, arrrgh.

In another wall which I do not intend to plaster, we have a decent builder's arch on a wrought iron bar, seen here before we moved in, with a builder offering obeisance,



but it was never meant to be seen.

A PO told me that when they bought in 1972 the house was plastered (gypsum, falling off) but they 'restored' it all. Sigh.

Down the sides of the inglenook opening one can see where the stones have been struck off to level the surface for a fire surround, so one day I shall make a surround and the arch will once again vanish.

Ivor

 

[mims&pip]

Yes, that does look all too familiar, Ivor :roll:

Here's a couple of pics of our last house from the day we viewed it back in April 2011......
Apart from the 1980s extension (built by the previous owner to our vendor and intended as an annex for her ageing parents), there was not a room that hadn't been subjected to the Disneyfication treatment of exposing the internal stone - to a greater/lesser degree. I don't object to it in small doses either - or rather I didn't prior to having to live in a cave for three years, lol - and some of that in my first pic I actually find quite attractive, but *everywhere*, and especially when it was never meant to be seen is just too much!

Mims x

 

[Rosie]

Hi the house has been in our family over a hundred years. We had a problem with the guttering and damp had got into the walls of the office. I simply removed the plaster work..to save money on the builders...to have it replastered.
I couldn't believe it when I found the old stone fire, next to it another fire underneath the wooden lintel...no I am leaving it as when you stand in the old one you can see it is empty. I presume the cupboard thing in the wall next to it was a salt box.
Seems odd that the old stone fireplace is not in the centre. On the opposite wall as I was taking the plaster off there were some lose bricks, and soot inside...the kitchen is on the other side and a chimney breast. So seems like 3 fires over the years in different rooms.
As I accidentally found that one I was curious what might be in the lounge. It was a hideous 1970's fireplace, tv stand and bookcase unit.
Not sure what is meant by not exposing the brickwork but the wall paper and newspaper looked a mess. I have never known a job as hard as cleaning brick work.
Unfortunately the entire house was artexed in the 1970's and we had hideous artex beams. As the fireplace was done I took the artex off the beams and sadly a lot of woodworm damage. The beams have...I don't know what you call them as if it had originally had up rights going in from the floor...if that makes sense.
The doors had panels on the front but I have taken them off as they are lovely 6 panel doors.So much of the house has things covered up.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I'd love to see some more photos - are there any general views of the outside that you could share?

 

[Rosie]

Hi I will get my hubby to add some photos tomorrow. Sadly it is all rendered, looks very drab the main part is stone, the walls are 2ft 6 to 3 foot wide but the rear part was an add on in the 1800's.
Rooms are kitchen, lounge,office, wc, dairy / meat hanging 2 rooms and the old kitchen which was turned into a garage. Six bedrooms, a bathroom and two staircases and there was a third but it was removed in the 1970's when it was "modernised". It suffered subsidence due to the coal mine locally and apparently mullion Windows were found but covered up as repairs were done.