Edwardian Mantels

The architect and designer Charles Annesley Voysey (1877- 1941) was a member of the Arts and Crafts Movement and he wanted to design fireplaces which were suitable for an advancing modern age, such as the Edwardian era. Voysey believed that there was an infinite number of ways to enhance the hearth through the fireplace surround, and he designed many styles of mantel in cast iron, pressed metal, wood and tile. In common with the movement’s principles, Voysey favoured the minimal look and dismissed the Victorian love of excess and splendour as ‘a mass of useless ornament’.

As a result, Edwardian mantels were markedly less decorative than Victorian ones, with cleaner lines and less ornamentation. However, the Edwardians shared the same eclectic tastes as the Victorians and there were many decorative influences to be seen in fireplaces of the period, from Neo-medievalism and Georgian through to the more recent Art Nouveau. The Art Nouveau style was characterised by long curving lines, often referred to as ‘whiplash lines’, and bold shapes. This style was short lived and fell out of favour before the First World War.

Early Edwardian mantels were made from slate, pine or deal, which was painted – mahogany and oak mantlepieces were still popular, but these were never painted. .Taller over-mantels with mirrors were an innovation of the Edwardian age, with cast iron, copper or tiled fireplace inserts. Although marble mantels could still be found in grander homes, they were generally in decline.

In the late Edwardian era, around the beginning of the First World War, the cast iron fireplace industry rapidly fell from favour and came to an end. From this point, fireplace inserts were usually made wholly from tile, using a technique known as ‘slabbing’. With this technique, manufacturers were able to mass- produce a wide range of Edwardian mantels, made from tile, stone and brick, for the huge housing estates being built at the end of the war. Tiled fireplaces tended to be in pastel colours or iridescent glazes, leaving the dark and depressing shades of Victorian tiled fireplaces in the past where they belonged.