Chimneypieces and ingle nooks; their design and ornamentation

Front matter

THS tJEMW

brJGHAM

PROVO, hi AH

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. BEGINNINGS AND EARLY DEVELOP- MENTS I

II. ROMANESQUE AND EARLY GOTHIC

Chapter I. Beginnings And Early Developments

So much romance attaches to the phrase “ hearth and home,” so deep is the sentiment connected with it and all that it conjures up to the imagination, that it is extremely difficult to realize how new are those things known to us as fireplaces and chimneypieces. We are apt to take them very much for granted, and regard them as coeval with the dawn of civilization in northern climes. They appear to us so necessary, such a natural outcome of structural design. Yet the truth is, they possess no great antiquity, as antiquity is measured by the long strides of human progress.

It is doubtful whether either the Greeks or Romans — in spite of the^fact that their dwellings were often large, elaborately planned, and provided with many luxuries

I of the utilitarian and the purely artistic kinds — had even rudimentary chimneys in their houses until quite a late period. Such remains of buildings as have come down to us outside of Pompeii, afford no evidence of their use, and no direct evidence is to be gathered from contemporary writers. Palladio certainly mentions two ancient fireplaces, one at Baiae and the other near Civita Vecchia. He describes them as standing in the middle of the rooms, columns supporting architraves, whereon were placed the pyramids or funnels through which the smoke was conveyed away. It is true frequent mention of fire and smoke is made by both Greek and Roman authors when referring to home life, but always in a somewhat vague way. Homer makes Ulysses, when in Calypso’s grotto, express the fervent desire that he might see the smoke ascending from Ithaca; in other words, he was home-sick, and longed for the family hearth. But although there can be no smoke without a fire, there can be both smoke and flame without a fireplace or chimney. Indeed, in most cases poets and prose writers alike refer to the nuisance of smoke and the inconvenience of the resulting soot ; it is only in a secondary sense that smoke stands as the emblem of home. Putting aside those writers chiefly concerned with history, customs, and manners, we may go, as more germane to our present inquiry, straight to a technical authority.

Now, we find Vitruvius in his chapter on “ Stucco ” saying : —

“ Some cornices are of plain, others of carved work. In small private rooms, or where fire or many lights are used, they should be plain, to allow of being more easily cleaned ; in summer rooms and excedra, where the smoke is in such small quantity that it can do no injury, carved cornices may be used ; for white works, from the delicacy of their colour, are always soiled, not only with the smoke of the house itself, but also with that of the neighbouring buildings.” In another chapter, while still on the topic of decoration, he adds : —

“In winter triclinia, neither large pictures nor delicate ornaments in the cornice, under the vault, are to be introduced, because they are soon injured by the smoke of the fire, and of the quantity of lights used therein.”

Clearly all this, from the pen of a master builder, points to the non-existence of chimneys. We are face to face with a system of heating very deficient, one creating smoke and dependent on the hypaethral opening in the roof, or on the doors and windows for its escape. He held that fires for the purpose of warming apartments must of necessity destroy decorations. Vitruvius, who, it must be remembered, wrote as late as the first century of our era, is so minute in his instructions to builders that it is inconceivable that he should have omitted to mention fireplaces and chimneys had any been in common use in his days. This seems conclusive enough, but we may go further.

Much of our knowledge of the general life of Greece and Rome, or at all events, of its interesting details, is derived from a close study of contemporary pictures. These are mostly painted on pottery, specimens of which exist from the archaic to the latest periods. We have also mural paintings and some mosaics, these belonging to the age of Imperial luxury. Taken altogether, these afford at once a valuable and an abundant source of information, particularly-^ so as regards the pottery, a great deal of which was made to supply the everyday wants of

15th Century Chimneypiece from Prittlewell households, and was naturally adorned with a heterogeneous gallery of pictures, now touching upon great events — the doings of gods, demi-gods, and heroes — anon condescending to record the most trivial of domestic affairs. Details that were far too familiar for writers to note have come down to us, thanks to the graphic touches of the humble painter. It is therefore very significant that both pottery designs and mural paintings are scanned in vain for any representation of the fireplace as we understand the term, or any sign of a chimney. On the other hand, we are given plenty of pictures showing fires alight in the open, being used for purposes of religious ceremonial, military routine, or that most important domestic duty, cooking. We also see brasiers, or foculi, introduced into the home circle, these great dishes, filled with embers or flaming wood, resting on their lower rim or standing on tall feet, and forming the centre of groups intent on gossip or culinary efforts.

Brasiers are, of course, essentially a device of a chimneyless people, invented to mitigate the inconvenience of smoke in more or less close confined apartments, and to overcome

the impossibility of having open hearths in

B luxuriously equipped rooms. They were used mainly for bringing glowing embers from great wood fires kindled outside, in the courtyards or kitchens, and subsequently were replenished with prepared charcoal, the ligna cocta or coctilia of the Latins. This was a means of warming that commended itself to a people dwelling in countries blessed with ardent summers, genial springs and hot autumns, where the winters were short-lived inconveniences. The use of brasiers persisted long in many lands. They were common in Greece up to the i8th century, were retained even longer in Italy, practically over the whole of Spain and much of France. In most of these countries the open brasier prevailed. We read of Antonio Magliabecchi, the famous librarian of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, that he used to move about among his books with a kind of warming pan attached to his arms, so that he might warm his hands during the cold days of a Florentine winter. Paintings by the great Spanish masters give us a good idea of the large, ornate brass dishes, on low legs, full of live coals, so commonly used even in the richly upholstered and carpeted palaces. France, where the Emperor Julian was nearly poisoned as the result of burning coals being brought into his Parisian winter quarters, was up to comparatively recently the land of the chauffrettey or closed -in brasier, the foot warmer.

From the same rich sources of painted pottery and walls we also gather some fairly comprehensible details concerning the hypocaustay or hot air basement stove, used both in public baths and in private houses, wherefrom one or two rooms, even a whole house, could be warmed. Authors are also definite enough upon this method. The hypocausta was a stove placed in the basement of a building, and was connected with one or several chambers above by means of channels in the thickness of the walls, and intended to convey hot air, from which smoke itself could not always be excluded. According to Seneca, these channels opened into chambers by way of a lion’s or a dolphin’s head, whose gaping mouth could be closed by means of a trap. In this way hot air was admitted or excluded as desired. It is to be observed that these channels do not appear to have been carried upon a level with or above the roof in order to emit smoke after the gases had stored their heat in the brick conduit. The idea was rather to conserve heat to the fullest extent, so that, when the chamber outlets were closed, the tubes began and ended in the stove. Of course smoke must have escaped into the apartments, and may be one of the reasons for Vitruvius’s cautions. No doubt by careful choice of fuel, wood soaked in water and then dried, dressed with oil lees, or the use of coctilia, or again by keeping a brisk fire with closed traps until the brickwork was hot and the fuel reduced to embers, the smoke nuisance may have been considerably mitigated. Horace seems to draw a distinction between the warming of houses of the well-to-do and the makeshift expedients adopted in wayside inns, which brought water to his eyes. The hypocausta was clearly a matter of luxury and not of common use.

In addition to the pictorial records of the ancients, and the less satisfactory cursory remarks of their authors, the study of architectural vestiges affords occasional useful information. Winkelmann, in describing his discoveries at Herculaneum, says : —

“ Of chimneys in apartments no traces are to be seen. Charcoal was found in some of the rooms in the city of Herculaneum, from which we may conclude that the inhabitants used only charcoal fires for warming themselves. ... In the villas, however, which were situated without Rome, on eminences where the air was purer and colder [than in the city], The ancients had hypocausta, which were perhaps more common than in the city. Stoves were found in the apartments of a ruined villa when the ground was dug up.

. . . Below these apartments there were subterranean chambers, about the height of a table, two and two under each apartment, and close on all sides. The flat top of these chambers consisted of very large tiles, and was supported by two pillars, which, as well as the tiles, were joined together, not with lime but some kind of cement, that they might not be separated by the heat. In the roofs of these chambers there were square pipes made of clay, which hung half-way down into each, and the mouths of them were conveyed into the apartment above. Pipes of the like kind built into the walls of the lower apartment rose into another in the second storey, where their mouths were ornamented with the figure of a lion s head in burned clay. A narrow passage, of about two feet in breadth, conducted to the subterranean chambers, into which coals were thrown through a square hole, and the heat was conveyed from them by means of the before-mentioned pipes into the apartment immediately above, the floor of which was composed of coarse mosaic work, and the walls were encrusted with marble. This was the sweating apartment. The heat of this apartment was conveyed into that on the second storey by the clay pipes enclosed in the wall, which had mouths opening into the former, as well as the latter, to collect and afford a passage to the heat, which was moderated to the upper apartment, and could be increased or lessened at pleasure.”

However, as we have said, the hypocausta in private buildings was the exception, not the rule. Apart from the brasiers, the most general way of warming apartments with the ancients was by means of a fire of wood or charcoal built up on a hearth, a flat stone or a concave depression, placed in the centre of rooms, the smoke from which was conveyed away through an opening in the roof, or simply by way of the doors and windows. Sometimes such hearths were placed close to walls. When the Roman villa was dis-

Florentine Stone, about 1450.

II covered at Bognor in Sussex, a hearth of this kind was found. It was formed of a stone slab and some bricks, firmly clamped together by means of iron ties in such a way as to provide a well-like enclosure. In fact, this luxurious dwelling was provided with just such a device as is adopted by campers and humble picnickers anxious to boil a kettle or broil a bird. In this instance there were no signs of any chimney connection, and there were no traces of any superstructure.

A limited qualification is here necessary. We have mentioned above that Pompeii must be excepted from our general remarks. It is a fact that in one or two instances an elementary type of fireplace and chimney has been found in that buried city, and if Palladio is correct, in two other instances elsewhere. In the buried cities the fireplaces are seen in the shape of a cavity, formed of an elliptical truncated cone of brick, and surmounted by pipes, or smoke channels in earthenware. These are extremely rare, and probably formed part of the kitchen equipment, for they have a somewhat close resemblance to the present local fornello, or small solid structures of brick or stone masonry, with a tiny depression for burning charcoal. The point is that even this quite rudimentary type is only met with in a very few instances at Pompeii, and a still more rudimentary stage suggested in still rarer cases, as at Bognor.

Now, this brings us into contact with the primitive methods of semi -nomadic tribes and hut dwellers. Mr E. Way Elkington in his book, “The Savage South Seas,” writing about the wooden huts of the coastal villages in New Guinea, which huts are built on piles over the sea and roofed with palm leaves, says that specially hard timber is chosen for the flooring. “ One log tougher than the rest is placed in position by the door, and on this a fire will probably be burning and a woman squatting by it, cooking her lord and master’s evening meal. The rank, yellow smoke which curls round her does not inconvenience her in the least. She takes no heed of it, but blows away at the embers. She never fears that the fire will spread and burn down her home.” But while the smoke-grimed interior of tents and huts are commonplaces to travellers among savage and barbaric people, in certain regions local exigencies brought about a refinement. Where fuel was scarce some method of conservation of heat must have early been hit upon. This is peculiarly true of treeless and bushless lands, where the droppings of herds and cattle form the principal source of fuel. Experience must have soon taught that the building up of a protecting wall at back and sides was necessary, both for economy and comfort. The next step would be to partly cover in the structure with stones, turf, or mud, leaving an opening in front to feed the fire, and another at the top for the escape of smoke or the reception of a cooking vessel. In this we have undoubtedly the prototype of the mound-like enclosed stoves of Central Asia and the northern regions of our Continent. Enclosure would, of course, bring about the necessity for a smoke channel, a chimney, either central and more or less vertical, or lateral, underground, and horizontal. The development of the stove as a means of house-warming must be dealt with at length at a later stage.

A desire to provide safeguards against conflagration rather than the idea of conservation of heat was the guiding principle responsible for the evolution of the semi-

H enclosed fireplace and the chimney. Field practice taught the advantages of building up a fire within the confines of a back wall and two side wings, rather than on a mere slab, so the central position of the hearth was changed for that of a space against a chamber wall, often with disastrous results. This experience would lead to a lining of the wall at the back, especially when much wood, or merely reeds and mud were used in construction. We have examples of this even so late as in the rebuilding of Bolsover Castle by the Cavendishes in the 17th century. The training up of the side wing enclosures would follow the provision of a back plate, and then the benefits to be derived from a side opening in the outer wall, and some means of directing the smoke towards it, would sooner or later become evident, and thus the fireplace and chimney came into existence. We can see all this in the early examples of Romanesque buildings.

A development which seems so selfevident, a method which appears quite natural to the merest tyro in log-hut building was, however, long delayed. It assuredly did not reach us from Egypt, a land where the principle of the hot-air stove, not only for baking, but for incubating eggs, was well understood. Nor did it come from Greece or Rome. It probably suggested itself to builders in wood ; but even so, it was a very late invention.

With us, as we have seen, the Roman invaders used the brasier and the open, chimneyless hearth, so that it is evident they cannot have found any superior device of native contrivance. Indeed, what we know of Celtic England shows us a country of single chamber dwellings, later having celllike excrescences, with the central hearth stove beneath a hypaethral opening. Among the Saxons the brasier was also used, probably descending from Latium through the intermediary of the Romanised Britons. But the prevailing style with them was not modelled on the Roman villa or military castle. With them, as with the Celts, the single chamber, be it a small room or a large hall, was the rule, and therein a fire was built up on a central hearthstone, placed beneath the roof opening.

That this method was general down to a late period is evidenced by the institution of the curfew, the Norman couvr e-feu, a i6 measure instigated, no doubt, largely by political motives, yet based on the unquestionable policy of public safety. That a law should be enacted obliging everybody to cover over the house fire at the approach of night, whether that fire was built in a pit or piled up on a flat or raised hearthstone, would be understandable enough, because it provided against the danger of conflagration resulting from unattended open fires, while conserving the heat that would still be given out from the embers. Incidentally, of course, the institution of the curfew made the detection of secret assemblies an easy matter, but the law had to be based on a more obvious requirement of the commonweal to make it possible. It is significant, as we shall see in the next chapter, that the curfew should have been abolished by Henry I. in iioo, when the chimney, with all that it implied, was beginning to make its appearance. Which, at all events, demonstrates how political benefits may result from progress in the arts of peace. Certainly the change of an open hearth into the fireplace was an immense step towards comfort and a great artistic gain, as the following pages will show.

Italian, 15th Century.

Chapter II. Romanesque And Early Gothic Examples

In the Romanesque we have a sterner rendering of that phase of Roman architecture adopted for military and semi-military edifices. Many of the earlier examples of the Romanesque give us tower-like structures, with a single chamber to each floor. Sometimes such keeps form a corner of a more imposing building, with main hall and other clustered apartments. In these halls usually the flat hearthstone, chimneyless, and placed in the centre, prevailed. Several instances of this arrangement have come down to us. At Penshurst Place, Kent, the Banqueting Hall has a central fireplace, a mere platform of stones with an octagonal kerb.

The Bayeux tapestry, though dealing with a military adventure, gives us views of several interiors, yet while we frequently i8 see preparations for feasting, as well as conclaves held, there are no indications of fireplaces or of chimneys. Other pictorial records afforded by illuminated MSS. are equally negative as to evidence on these points. On the other hand, we find authors as early as 1069 referring to caminatcB, a term which has been interpreted by many as denoting rooms provided with chimneys, probably on the ground that Papias the grammarian, writing in 1051, defined fumarium as caminus per quern exit fumus. But it may be that this fumariuniy this highway for the escape of smoke, was something of the nature of a hood or funnel, arranged somewhat after the manner of the hypocausta pipes described by Winkelmann, only having an opposite function — that is, the conveying away of smoke from open hearths, of which we have still many examples. Then we would regard caminatce as chambers having hearths, but provided with hypaethral or other openings, with some structure training the smoke towards the opening : an improvement on mere dependence upon windows and doorways. It was a considerable step forward, which was to be developed successfully, for we find regularly-designed fireplaces with rudimentary chimneys making their appearance with the later Romanesque builders. Conisborough, Rochester, Newcastle - on - Tyne, Tonbridge, and Somerton Castles, Clifford’s Tower and Durham Abbey kitchen in England, and Cashel and Kilmallock in Ireland, bear witness to this.

LOWER CHIMNEYPIECE, CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.

Of these, Conisborough possesses peculiar interest, both to the archaeologist and the architect, in this particular connection, because two of the keep’s chambers contain fireplaces which are characterised by very instructive transition features. That is to say, the hearths are here of a primitive type, but are provided with astonishingly well developed frames and hoods, as well as with quite effective chimneys. This keep, which was built for William de Warren under license from William Rufus, and therefore dates back to the last decade of the nth, or the early years of the 12th century, is a tower rising from a spreading base, has immensely thick walls, and only one chamber on each floor. On the first floor is the principal chamber, and here is seen a large fireplace, the hearth against the wall, but not recessed, coming, indeed, well into the room. In order to secure draught and the escape of smoke, the wall behind the hearthstone slopes backwards from base upwards, where it is connected with a shaft. The jambs are in the form of wing walls of moderate projection just covering the hearth, and are ornamented in front with a cluster of three non - engaged columns. These columns stand on a single base, have plain shafts, with individual and slightly foliated capitals. Another interesting detail is that the chimney lintel or architrave, which is straight, is formed of large dressed stones,

Italian Early 16th Century.

the centre one being wedge-shaped, with cut-in sides on the lower half. The stones on both sides are hipped on their face towards the keystone and cut-in on their outward side, thus the whole row is joggled. A method of keying such as this is often resorted to, with modifications in the details of jogglings. At Cashel, where we have a fine example of Norman work, the same style is adopted, while in a much later example at Edlingham Castle, Northants, circa 1330, in the Decorated style, the long narrow stones are given a curious wavy form, something like the nebule line in heraldry. Joggling was a system of gaining strength possessing distinct artistic merits. But to return to Conisborough. The architrave of our specimen supports a moderately proportioned flat- topped hood. In the upper chamber the fireplace is constructed on the same principle, also having a sloping back, wing walls, and three clustered columns, only it is rather smaller, with flat, hoodless top. In both examples, while the hearth is in the room, the smoke is trained away from the interior towards the throat, where it joins a shaft carried upwards to the ramparts. It is conjectured that some form of top or stack

c may have existed originally. It will be seen that in these we find utilitarian details turned conscientiously to decorative account. It is with us the advent of the chimneypiece.

Rochester Castle, which was built by Bishop Gundulph about the same time as Conisborough, is a more pretentious edifice, but possesses rather more primitive fireplaces. They are placed against the walls, are slightly recessed in circular form, have semi-circular arched openings, with two columns at side, a tall breast, and small, flattopped hood, the whole being nearly flush with the walls. The hearths, sides, and backs form a sort of conical cavity, reaching outwards to a loophole opening, placed uniformly with the regular loopholes. A zigzag or chevron ornamentation is cut as a border to the arched opening.

At Colchester Castle the fireplaces, contrived against the walls, are recessed, have a lower stone-course, with brickwork above. The bricks are rather narrow, and are laid slanting, first to right, then to left, but not in regular herring-bone style, inasmuch as we find three courses to the left, then two to the right, and so on. The backs are shallow.

but slope upwards, while the openings are arched.

At Newcastle-on-Tyne, built in 1172-77, the arched opening is segmental, and is adorned with the Norman billet.

CORNER FIREPLACE, CASHEL.

At Penshurst one of the ancient stone fireplaces has a raised hearth, slender jambs, flat breast, with crenelated base, and pointed hood. Britton gives a picture of a Norman fireplace from Winwall House, Norfolk, of uncertain date. It is placed against the wall, has a raised, slightly recessed hearth, wing walls of moderate projection, slightly decorated lintel, and conical hood carried to the ceiling. The back has the angles filled in, thus presenting a five-sided chamber.

In Ireland we have found examples of Norman work at Kilmallock and at Cashel. The latter is curious, because it is built in an angle, one wall forming the back, which is given an upward slope from the base, while the other wall is utilised as the enclosing wing. There is a broad, joggled lintel, and a truncated, pointed hood. A very quaint feature is the curved masonry arm, like a horizontal flying buttress, carried from the side lintel to the wall.

In France regularly constructed fireplaces seem to have come in with the 12th century. They were placed against the walls, were provided with jambs to enclose the hearths, were crowned by architraves supporting well developed hoods connected with smoke outlets.

In Flanders the change appears to have developed much earlier. At the Chateau des Comtes, Ghent, there are three very instructive examples hidden away in the basement, They are little more than arched recesses in the walls, though in one case the back is circular, and the arch is made to spring from the floor base with slight projection, so that we find rudimentary jambs. Other similar fireplaces are seen in several houses in the town. Then, in a fine old merchant’s house in the rue Basse, possessing a very primitive recessed arrangement in the basement, we come upon something far more advanced on the first floor, the fireplace being provided with jambs and pillars, the summits spreading out into corbels adorned (if that is the fitting word for the hideous mask) with a human face. These belong to the loth and nth centuries. At Bruges, in the gatehouses of the Porte de Gands and the Porte Ste Croix, we find quaint, recessed fireplaces, with circular backs, mouldings round the openings, but no jambs, the lintels triangular, with long bases. In the first example the top of the lintel is outlined for nearly its whole length with a course of upright bricks. In the second there is a semi-circular course of bricks some few inches above the lintel. These additions can have no other than a decorative object.

With us other rudimentary fireplaces have been recorded at Clifford’s Tower, York; at Tonbridge Castle, built by Richard de Clare, temp. William II.; in the keep of the late Norman period at Middleham Castle, Yorks (provided with smoke shafts); at the Jews House, Lincoln, circa 1150, where the fireplace is built on an arch over the entrance door, and is provided with a semiexternal smoke flue rising to the eaves ; at the Pottergate Arch, Lincoln, temp. Edward I. ; at Somerton Castle, Lincolnshire, built by Antony Bek (subsequently Bishop of Durham), who had licence from Edward I. in 1281 to crenelate his castle; and at Boothby Pagnall, also in Lincolnshire. This last has a fireplace against the wall, the hearth being enclosed by a raised masonry kerb with rounded ends ; it has no jambs or wing walls, but a hood juts out from the wall above the hearth, and is connected with a smoke channel.

This form of construction at Boothby Pagnall is, of course, a transition device, a variation of the roof funnel hood, placed over the central hearths in large halls and in kitchens.

In the Monasticum Gallicum a Romanesque kitchen roof is pictured. It appears as a conical mound, having three rows of conical chimneys, one row above the other, each chimney shaped somewhat like a miniature kiln or bottle ; at the top is a rather larger chimney, belching forth smoke. No details are given, but elaborate as it is this does not necessarily entail a regular fireplace or even a smoke funnel. What was usually done was to build the roof over the hearth in the form of a cupola, this being louvred, or provided with chimneys. To facilitate the removal of smoke and create draught the hood was sometimes added. The pierced hood cupola was certainly adopted at the great kitchen of the Romanesque monastery of Fontevrault, which has a tall pyramidal octagon dome with chimney at top and a few openings lower down. At a much later period the Great Hall at Westminster School was provided with a central brasier, placed under a mere louvred projection in the timbered roof. The roof hood, however, was frequently in the form of an inverted funnel, suggesting the hood of the chimneypiece as seen in the examples above described.