There is something so quintessentially English about fireplaces – cosy family evenings sitting around a blazing coal-fire, listening to the rain as it pitter-patters against night-darkened windows. Small boys in blue-striped pyjamas, with their smaller sisters in dainty cotton nightdresses, rub their eyes before kissing mummy and daddy night-night and trailing reluctantly up the stairs…Oops, sorry, got carried away there!
On a more serious note, the history of antique English fireplaces is a long and illustrious one, and you will find pages within this site dealing with each important period in detail. However, the brief overview will guide you through the basic developments of the English ‘Hearth and Home.’ To write the complete history of antique English fireplaces would take a whole book, because to write the history of fireplaces in Britain is to write the history of the United Kingdom!
In fact, an andiron from almost the very beginning of British history (the Roman period of around 300 AD) was found in Colchester and is now on display in the Colchester and Essex Museum at Colchester Castle.
