Fireplaces from their early inception were both community centers in the home offering comfort, safety and a hot meal. Our ancestors in the trees so to speak did without hot and cooked meals, which we take for luxury today. Yet cooked meals were not only a means of comfort and pleasure, as well dangerous and non tasty pathogens were removed from the digestive and health scenes. Yet even though the early fireplaces were little more than wood or peat fires on earth hearth they have evolved today into sophisticated appliances that offer both heat , visual appeal and indeed are a centerpiece furnishing accessory in many of our homes and buildings.

The historic Saxon-era abode, whether it was a palace, a manor house or a lowly simple one room cottage was no doubt and definitely built around the fireplace. Room could be added on at different time periods and stages of the house or cottage’s lifetime, but the fireplace was the hub and hubbub of early English domestic life providing heat to cook food, boil water and heat up the bones of inhabitants and guests.

This common hall was usually, though not always, on the ground floor and level and was traditionally open to the roof. The fire as it was would be generally placed in the center of the room, and the resulting smoke would drift out through open windows, crevices in the eaves – or futuristically in a hole in the roof created just for that purpose and role. The birth of the chimney so it appears.

Technology and things changed over time – sometimes for the better as coal as a fuel was less smoky and objectionable than wood fires when burnt in such quarters as this. Not to say that the inhabitants of the early peat and wood fireplaces were not grateful for their heat, comfort and warm food. Yet when one considers that in this common room or heated areas the inhabitants would have no doubt had to lie close to the fire or early fireplace to keep warm during chilly times.

Fireplace and heating technology marched on so that by the 12th century recessed fireplaces in other rooms of houses along with their chimney exhaust systems began to appear on the scene becoming somewhat more commonplace and available. Still though the concept and dominance of the central home fireplace was still played such an important and dominant role that chimneys did not come into use in the central hall areas until the early 16’Th century.

Last in line though were “smoke turrets “or louvers which finally were introduced during the reign of Henry III according to written records of the time. However sadly no actual examples of these smoke turrets are still in existence. Initially these louvers were built solely for assisting the exhaust of smoke and smoky air out of the buildings.

Gradually it seems that fireplaces and fireplaces designs evolved over time and function from the simple fire in the center of the home to fireplaces with their chimney stacks and as a highly decorative architectural ornament and indeed household furnishing accessory if not center point.

Author Bio: Amy U. Goodmann