Except that the urn and the shutters have gone out of fashion, the picture might have been drawn in the present day, so far have we travelled from the central hearth of the Gothic hall. The stirring of the fire is a touch that reminds us of the disappearance of the open hearth, and the adoption of the fire-grate in its stead—a change which had occurred some sixty or seventy years before Cowper published his “Winter Evening” in 1785. No exact date can be assigned to the alteration, just as no exact date can be given to the practice of papering walls instead of panelling them or hanging them with tapestry. But in an inventory of two country houses belonging to a director of the South Sea Company, made in 1720, it is obvious that although grates were already in use the open hearth was still prevalent. Many of the rooms had fire-dogs, shovels, and tongs, but no poker; while others had a grate, shovel, tongs, and poker, but no fire-dogs. It is the dogs which were essential to the open hearth in order to keep the logs of wood in position, for wood was the fuel of the ancient fire; and it is the poker which was essential to the grate in order to break the coal, and coal was the fuel of the modern fire. The intermediate step was the dog-grate, which was in its essence a firebasket holding coal, and placed in the old, large, open recesses. This expedient, however, was not entirely successful. The huge flues of the old days did not draw away the smoke from the small coal fires adequately; coal smoke is far more pungent and disagreeable than wood smoke; and therefore the next step was to increase the draught by combining with the grate a shield which should close the large opening of the open hearth, or by building it up with brickwork. The result was the first ancestor of the modern grate.
199. Chimney-piece designed by James Gibbs.
From an Original Drawing by the Architect.
200. Chimney-piece in a House in Whitehall Gardens, London (before 1727).
This chimney-piece closely resembles one in Kent’s “Designs of Inigo Jones,” plate 63.
201. Chimney-piece from Lansdowne House, London (cir. 1765).
