Dr. Arnott, the worthy successor of Count Rumford[41] in heat philosophy, when seeking to shame us out of using ill-contrived fireplaces and scientific bunglings, tells us that the savages of North America place fire in the middle of the floor of their huts, and sit around in the smoke, for which there is escape only in the one opening in the hut, which serves as chimney, window, and door. Some of the peasantry in remote parts of Ireland and Scotland still place their fires in the middle of their floors, and, for the escape of the smoke, leave only a small opening in the roof, often not directly over the fire. In Italy and Spain, almost the only fires seen in sitting-rooms are large dishes of live charcoal, or braziers, placed in the middle, with the inmates sitting around, and having to breathe the noxious carbonic-acid gas which ascends from the fire, and mixes with the air in the room; there being no chimney, the ventilation of the room is imperfectly accomplished by the windows and doors. The difference between the burned air from a charcoal fire, and smoke from a fire of coal or wood, is that in the latter there are added to the chief ingredient, carbonic acid, which is little perceived, others which disagreeably affect the eyes and nose, and so force attention.
With these facts before us, it is not difficult to imagine how our ancestors tolerated the nuisance of wood smoke filling their rooms till it found its way through the roof lantern, as was generally the case until the general introduction of chimneys late in the reign of Elizabeth. It should, however, be mentioned that the temperature of their apartments was kept considerably below that of our sitting-rooms in the present day. Before the fourteenth century, except for culinary and smithery purposes, robust Englishmen appear to have cared little about heating their dwellings, and to have dispensed with it altogether during the warmer months of the year. Even so late as the reign of Henry VIII. it seems that no fire was allowed in the University of Oxford: after supping at eight o'clock, the students went to their books till nine in winter, and then took a run for half an hour to warm themselves previously to going to bed. Therefore, all ideas of the firesides of our forefathers should be confined to four centuries.
The usage of making the fire in the middle of the hall, a lover of olden architecture says, "was not without its advantages: not only was a greater amount of heat obtained, but the warmth became more generally diffused, which, when we consider the size of the hall, was a matter of some importance. The huge logs were piled upon the andirons or thrown upon the hearth, and the use of wood and charcoal had few of those inconveniences which would have resulted from coal;" an opinion strangely at variance with that of the heat philosopher already quoted.
We are now approaching the age of Chimneys. A practical writer has thus pictured the domestic contrivance, ad interim: "The hearth recess was generally wide, high, deep, and had a large flue. The hearth, usually raised a few inches above the floor, had sometimes a halpas or daïs made before it, as in the King's and Queen's chambers in the Tower. Before the hearth recess, or on the halpas, when there was one, a piece of green cloth or tapestry was spread, as a substitute for the rushes that covered the lower part of the floor. On this were placed a very high-backed chair or two, and foot-stools, that sometimes had cushions; and above all high-backed forms, and screens, both most admirable inventions for neutralizing draughts of cold air in these dank and chilling apartments. Andirons, fire-forks, fire-pans, and tongs were the implements to supply and arrange the fuel. Hearth recesses with flues were common in the principal chambers and houses of persons of condition; and were superseding what Aubrey calls flues, like loover holes, in the habitations of all classes. The adage that 'one good fire heats the whole house,' was found true only in the humbler dwellings; for in palace and mansion, though great fires blazed in the presence-chamber, or hall, or parlour, the domestics were literally famishing with cold. This discomfort did not, however, proceed from selfish or stingy housekeeping, but rather from an affectation of hardihood, particularly among the lower classes, when effeminacy was reckoned a reproach. Besides, few could know what comfort really was; but those who did, valued it highly. Sanders relates that Henry VIII. gave the revenues of a convent, which he had confiscated, to a person who placed a chair for him commodiously before the fire and out of all draughts."
On the introduction of chimneys, in the year 1200, only one chimney was allowed in a manor-house, and one in the great hall of a castle or lord's house: other houses had only the rere-dosse, a sort of raised hearth, where the inmates cooked their food. Harrison, in a passage prefixed to Holinshed's Chronicle, writes in the reign of Elizabeth: "There are old men dwelling in the village where I remayne, who have noted three things to be marvellously altered in England, within their sound remembrance. One is the multitude of chimneys lately erected; whereas, in their younger days, there was not about two or three, if so many, in most uplandish towns of the realm (the religious houses and manor places of the lords always excepted, and peradventure some great personage's); but each made his fire against a reré-dosse in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meat."
Numerous instances, however, remain of fireplaces and chimneys of the fourteenth century, even in the hall, though they were more usual in the smaller apartments. In the hall at Meare, in Somersetshire, the fireplace had a hood of stone, perfect, finely corbelled out; and by the side of the fireplace is a bracket for a light, ornamented with foliage.
It is curious to find chimneys constructed of so combustible a material as wood. In the Liber Albus of the City of London, 1419, it is ordered by Wardmote "that no chimney be henceforth made, except of stone, tiles, or plaster, and not of timber, under pain of being pulled down."
In the metropolis, we possess a hall of the fifteenth century, which has a fireplace, the existence of which, in a hall of this age, is singular, if not unique. In the north wall of the celebrated hall of Crosby Place, Bishopsgate Street, is a fireplace with a low pointed arch. The builder must have possessed a more refined taste than his contemporaries, and feeling the inconvenience attending a fire of the old description (in the middle of the hall) adopted the plan of confining it to the recessed fireplace and the chimney.[42] Here we may mention the "smoke-loft," which seems to mean the wide space in the old-fashioned chimney.
It is curious to find that a tax was once paid upon a fire in England. Such was "the smoke farthings" levied by the clergy upon every person who kept a fire. The "hearth money" was a similar tax, but was paid to the king: it was first levied in 1653, and its last collection was in 1690.
In the Tapestry room of St. James's Palace is a stone Tudor arched fireplace, sculptured with H. A. (Henry and Anne), united by a true lover's knot, surmounted by the regal crown and the lily of France, the portcullis of Westminster, and the rose of Lancaster.