Riverview

While the lads are working at demolishing inside the house, flowers are pointing their nose in the garden…

Spring is here!

There are two fireplaces in this house (well actually three, but that’s a post for another day). On the face of it both are plain 50’s tiled coal fireplaces. With reasonably attractive tiles and a open grate intended for burning coal (i.e. with a spinner to adjust the air supply on the front).

Here’s one:

I suspected that this fireplace may have something far nicer underneath, and waddayaknow there’s a pretty old Inglenook fireplace beneath.

Except it get’s more complicated. After exposing the fibreboard cupbaord to the left, we find that the bricks above are just a facade, and the actual chimney is far nicer and far older than it first seemed.

This chimney continues (of course) to the next floor where it looks just as old:

In the front room was a fairly standard tiled thirties coal fireplace. Obviously far more recently than the rest of the house. I suspected that there’s a much nicer fireplace hidden away, but up until now I’ve been nervous about exposing this in case I find nothing. Well there is a inglenook fireplace hidden away behind all that crappy fibre board.

The following photos were all taken by sticking my hand in the gap shown above along with my camera to take the void.

The straw of the clunch (straw and mud) is clearly visible on the back here.

Finally with a few courses of bricks removed to see the void in full.

I’m suspecting that the prior occupants were either agrophobic (there are other voids I’ve discovered too), or just liked brick laying!

In light of any real progress at the moment, here’s some piccies of what will eventually become my garden office/room/shed in the recent snow.