Not only do fireplaces make wonderful focal points for any room in your home, they can also add to the value of your property.  To be frank, in today’s current economic climate anything that does that has to be worthy of consideration.

In the video link below, (sadly this particular video won’t allow embedding), New York interior design specialists discuss how some design features of your fireplace can add more value to your home than others.

If you can manage to get over the somewhat off-putting style of delivery, there is some valuable information here.

Learn about:

1.  the do’s and don’ts for placing plasma TVs above the fireplace

2.  which room is best for adding a fireplace in terms of resale value

3.  the fuel gel fireplace trend (easy, inexpensive, and stylish)

4.  using decorative mantels and other fireplace surround materials to tie in with your room’s colour scheme

5.  the romance of coal and wood-burning fireplaces.

Cast iron has been popularly used in the construction of fires and fireplace mantels since the Victorian era. With the advent of the industrial revolution, the production of cast iron soared, and thus it was used to create fires and fireplaces on a large scale. In fact, a typical Victorian fireplace was made entirely of cast iron – the combination cast iron fireplace comprised the grate, insert and fireback in one solid unit, and these were commonly found in bedrooms. Although commonly found, Victorian cast iron fireplaces were beautiful, with excellent standards of craftsmanship, and are still in demand today. Also, cast iron fires and fireplaces are still in production today, in line with the demand for cast iron reproduction fireplaces.

Marble is perhaps the most opulent and luxurious of all fireplace materials, and, as a result of this, it has been used to construct fireplace mantels for hundreds of years. Several hundreds of years ago, grand marble fireplaces covering a whole wall could be seen in many a stately home, and on a much smaller scale up and down the country. These were constructed from pure marble and thus very expensive, but today marble fireplaces are much more affordable. Many marble fireplaces are made from micro or conglomerate marble, and these are much cheaper than pure marble. Marble is also a very hardwearing material – it can last a lifetime – and easy to keep clean. As a result, marble fireplace mantels always have been and will continue to be in big demand.

Other popular fireplace mantel materials are wood and stone. Stone is a natural product that is millions of years old, and rustic stone fireplaces are all slightly different in terms of markings and colour. Stone is a very hardwearing material but brings a surprising warmth and softness to the home due to its colour, which is usually various tones of beige. It looks great when contrasted with the smoothness of marble. Wood is probably the most commonly used material for fireplace mantels due to its versatility and affordability, and the fact that it is very hardwearing. Most solid wood fireplaces are made from inexpensive pine and then varnished in various wood colours, but some expensive solid wood fireplaces are fashioned from mahogany or yew. Many modern wood fireplaces are mass-manufactured from MDF, and these are sold very cheaply. There really is a huge choice of wood mantels, both period and contemporary, and this is testament to their popularity.

Historical influence was discarded in favour of modern ideas and decorative detail was sacrificed to function. Industrial designs and methods were adopted. Modern fireplace designs were often reflected in the worldwide craze for Egyptology, after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.

The typical characteristics of the Art Deco mantel are clean lines and sharp edges, stylishness and symmetry, often with references to ancient Egyptian and Greek designs – Stylised flowers, women and animals, geometric patterns, zigzags, chevrons and lightning bolts show this clearly.

Also, elements of the Orient, tribal Africa and the Ballet Russes were to be found in Art Deco mantels. Other common motifs included geometric patterning, steps, setbacks and sunbursts.

There was a wealth of Art Deco mantel designs, using traditional materials but in a more spectacular way. The majority of mantels were made of wood, usually oak, walnut or mahogany, and these were lacquered to give a modern feeling without being overtly ornate.

Whilst the traditional homeowner would have incorporated a simple wooden surround with a modern ceramic insert, a true follower of Art Deco would have had a machine-manufactured complete ceramic unit.

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.

The late Victorian age brought a mixture of styles. In direct contrast to the Georgian, Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, the Victorian era shunned uniformity and had an exuberance that appealed to all. It was customary to decorate mantels with plush velvet pelmets; over-mantels had many shelves and brackets and sometimes the whole mantelpiece was backed with a mirror – plate glass became very popular around this time. The late Victorians particularly loved Jacobean architecture, with its rich profusion of Renaissance and medieval motifs.

The Victorian architect William Burges revelled in the middle ages and he had the privilege of designing the amazing fireplace in the medieval great hall at Cardiff Castle. The stone over-mantle represents Cardiff Castle itself and the Earl of Gloucester is shown riding out to war through the castle gates, to a fanfare of trumpets from the battlements above. The scene was colourfully painted in natural colours.

The degree of ornament on a Victorian fireplace mantel related directly to social class and the social importance of a room. In working-class homes the fireplace was plain, but the over-mantle was very ornamental and made of wood, which was stained or painted.

The industrious middle classes were able to mass-produce designs that would have only been previously available to the wealthy, and thus they had grand fireplaces in the drawing and dining rooms – fireplaces featured in other rooms too, such as bedrooms, but these were on a much smaller scale. The wealthy were lucky enough to be able to choose any elaborate designs that appealed to them.

Marble became too expensive towards the end of the 19^th century, so painted pine and mahogany, slate and cast iron were used for the majority of Victorian fireplace mantels.

Antique fireplaces and mantels make a wonderful focal point in any room, but they are sadly lacking in many modern abodes. In the rush for clean lines and efficiency, the heart of the home has been lost – the hearth, that comforting place where family and friends used to gather to spend precious time together.

Not content with building fireplace-free homes, a whole generation ripped out antique fireplaces and mantels from period homes so that they could join the central-heating revolution. Now, people are desperately searching for period fireplaces and antique mantels so that they can, once again, enjoy the magic of the fireside.

There seems to be something typically English about antique fireplaces and mantels, but it would be a mistake to think that all were made in England – some of the most popular designs are continental. Whether you want to bring authentic character and warmth to a period home by installing an antique fireplace and surround of the corresponding age or you need a focal point for your modern home, there is a wide range on the market, with a fireplace to suit every room.

Sometimes, the antique fireplaces seen in our imagination are a mixture of styles taken from the television or glossy magazines – we have visions of warming our homes with cast iron fireplaces beneath marble mantelpieces with limestone surrounds. Faced with so much choice and so much history, confusion reigns!

The following pages will guide you through the maze of antique fireplaces and mantels available – when armed with the correct information, we promise that searching for an antique fireplace can and will be a thoroughly enjoyable experience!

For hundreds of years, the chimneypiece was extremely ornate as it was of real significance within a room. With the advent of central heating, fireplaces became smaller, and both the artistic and practical significance of the mantelpiece waned. However, in recent times the modern homeowner has rediscovered the value of installing a mantelpiece and thus they are in great demand once more.

The earliest known chimneypiece is to be found in the Kings House at Southampton – Norman shafts in the joints carry a segmental arch, believed to originate from the first half of the 12th century. By the 14th  century, the chimneypiece became much wider so that families could gather round the hearth – this became an indispensable part of British family life for hundreds of years, right up until the present day.

The history of the decorative style of mantelpieces mirrors the history of the architectural style of interior décor: Renaissance, French, Victorian, etc. These different mantel styles are looked into in more detail on the folllowing pages.