The Studio yearbook of decorative art (1908)

BRITISH FIREGRATES AND MANTEL-

PIECES. By Llewellyn Morris.

EVERY year shows a slow but sure increase in the number
of architects who have realised the necessity of thoroughly
thinking out every detail of their designs. To study, in
fact, every portion of them, so that at last they may attain some
measure of that unity of effect which one finds in such houses as
" Clouds," by Mr. Phillip Webb or "Marsh Court" by Mr. Edwin
L. Lutyens. For this reason the fireplace has received consider-
able attention from the best architects of this generation, and
rightly so, for it being an important, perhaps the most important,
feature of the room, there is plenty of scope for skilful devising and
proper decorative treatment. Much of the beauty and comfort
of a room depends on its successful arrangement and design.

It is not altogether surprising, therefore, that in spite of the
many inventions for the heating of the modern house, the ordi-
nary coal or wood fire is still first in the field. No stove, gas fire,
nor electric heater has been devised which can compare with
the traditional method of warming, for comfort, convenience,
and beauty. From the time when the great halls were heated
by a fire in the middle of the floor down to the present day,
with its more scientific solution, the visible flame has been a
fundamental requirement of the Englishman's home. It is not
unfair to say that newer methods stand in precisely the same
relation to the old-fashioned way of warming, that the use of
enamelled sheets of zinc stands to the ordinary glazed tile wall
covering. The fact is, both methods and materials which have
stood the test of time possess a happy knack of surviving the
usually crude innovations of commercial enterprise. While in
these basic things there is not much alteration from generation
to generation, ornament and decoration, as in the fireplaces during
the last century, frequently undergo rapid changes. The plan
for the actual fire, the hearth, the shaft, the breast, and the hole
in the wall, are practically what they were in Elizabethan times ;
such modifications as have taken place being chiefly a more accu-
rate gauging of the dimensions of the fire for a room of a given
area, economy of fuel, and better radiation of the heat.

It is on this practical side that there has been some progress
of late years amongst manufacturers. They have arrived at a
certain unanimity of opinion as to what constitutes a good grate;
unfortunately, there is not the same advance in matters of taste and
design. One need only turn over the pages of the ordinary
k xxi