THli HOUSK AND ITS EOUIl .MKNT. 



FIREPLACES. 



I lie I Fire in the Mediaeval HiillDoitlillitl Virtue* &amp;lt;&amp;gt;/ Dog-grates and Huh-grates -Count Rnmford s 

 Invention --The Principle* of Fireplace Design Rerir.il oj Old 1 altenis Mantel Registers -Causis 



of Fog -Anthracite Stores and I lieir I ses. 



HI- ordinary house fireplace, as we know it to-day in its many and varied lonns, is the lineal 

 descendant of the open tin: in the middle of the medi.Tvul hall. In this position, though then- 

 could have been very little loss of radiant heat, and none went up the chimnev. as there did 

 1 not happen to he one. the smoke problem must have been an appalling one. The wind &amp;lt; ame 



eddving through the ungla/.ed windows or through the screens at the end of the hall as doors 



\\ere opened and hunting-parties returned to their supper. However, the hypersensitive, nerves 



ol to-day hardly afflicted the jovial knight and his squires; the smoke may have served as a 



useful deodoriser, but it is to be 



it .iri-d that they were a somewhat 



;;iubby lot. About the twelfth 



M-ntnry the fireplace found its way 



to the wall, and it has stayed 



there ever since. There is an 



&amp;lt; \tremelv interesting one at Castle 



lledinghain in Kssex. which has 



all the characteristics that were 



to last right down to the 



eighteenth century -the open 



hearth on which the tire burnt. 



\\i;h a tine Norman arch across it, 



and then, instead of 



i lie ( a m i 1 i ar I 1 u e 



v an i s h i n g i n a 



\ertical direction to 



i h e c h i in n e y . it 



--lants out at an angle 



of about Godeg. to the 



exterior wall, where 



the outlet is concealed 



behind one of the flat 



N or m an buttresses. 



This must be quite 



one of the earliest 



fireplaces, and is. with 



its encircling castle, 



well worth a visit to 



anyone interested 



in the subject. This type remained for many centuries, with all sorts of modifications to suit the 



varying styles of architecture, and it is one that&quot; is beloved of architects. The cavern of its recess, large 



enough for seats at either side of the fireplace, and the sudden leaps of flame which light up the eddie&amp;gt; 



ill smoke in their upward path, all go to make a picturesque whole. It is possible to give scale to 



Mich a treatment, and get a better effect than is possible with the ordinary modern grate, stuck in a hole in 



the wall, with a flat sort of mantel-piece for a surround. The unfortunate side of the business, though, 



is that the despised modern slow-combustion grate is much more efficient from the point of view of 



the consumption of bituminous coal and consequent production of heat. An illustration is given of a 



fireplace in one of Mr. Xorman Shaw s houses (Fig. 34), which is an extremely satisfactory solution of 



the problem, excepting only that the dog-grate is one of the worst forms of stoves, a very large proportion 



ol the heat going up the chimney. The design shows a fireplace within the ingle-nook, and it would now 



31. THE Ot KN I-IKK IN THE HALL. 



