FIREPLACES RIPON ABBEY TO VENICE 233 



Mantel mirrors were barred as reflecting generally the unin- 

 teresting back of a clock. We substituted tinted plaster casts, 

 leaded glass cabinets, burnt wood designs and paintings, and in the 

 library mantel face set a circular clock taken from grandfather's 

 town house library, where it had faithfully ticked through the lives 

 of the household for over fifty years. One over mantel was brick- 

 hooded, one faced with copper, one with plush and still another 

 in tooled leather on which was inscribed the Stewart coat of arms 

 in shimmering silver. One fire back or reredos was iron, embossed 

 with a coat of arms, others of fire brick in varied hue and one of 

 cement criss-crossed with black headed nails. There were Norman 

 and Pompeiian mantels, with full recognition given to the line of 

 Louis, while Egypt, that land of heat and hieroglyphics, was repre- 

 sented by a mantel front modeled from crude tracings gleaned from 

 Thebes. A black grottoed fireplace became a real grotto of rocks 

 and ferns in summer, while another held one of those big shells from 

 the Orient, on whose white lip was painted a yacht race. 



Hobs in the hall fireplace suggested the days when they served 

 to hold kettles, etc., while a Dutch chimney and mantel and narrow 

 leather cushioned seats at each end of the fender top gave a home- 

 like air to the den. 



Tiles in billiard room chimney breast represented windmills and 

 quaintly rigged luggers. 



We had always craved the antipodal in fireplaces one as broad 

 as that in Ripon Abbey and another as narrow and peaked as convex 

 copper hood could make it and still keep the semblance of a fireplace. 

 Lack of space dwarfed the former, but the latter played its part 

 rarely well. Mantel breasts were carried to ceiling height and 

 treated in tile, copper, or brass. In front of one fireplace was inserted 

 a metal framed sheet of thick plate glass which served to extend one's 

 view of the leaping flames. Break? No; not if fire-tested and cor- 

 rectly set. 



Some mantel shelves were placed very low ; others correspond- 

 ingly high one, a couple of feet from the ceiling line and boxed in 

 two feet in width, another barely three feet above the floor level and 

 supported by caryatides; others lined with the window or door cap- 

 pings. In the drawing room was an onyx hearth and mantel-face 

 with gilded shelf and brass andirons, fender and fire tools. A trolley 

 rail we found just the thing to firmly support level headed fire open- 

 ings, and where flue space in chimney permitted the fireplace con- 

 nected with an ash flue, leading to an ash pit in the cellar. 



Reluctantly it was decided to omit the fireplace in dining room, 

 though crackling flames add much to good cheer, for, unless this 

 room is unusually large, someone is sure to be made uncomfortable. 



A throated mantel hood was constructed in the billiard room by 

 bulging out the side wall when the room was plastered. It harmon- 



