Stone Fireplace, Stone Staircase, Limestone Fireplaces

What was your first car?  Mine was a 1965 java green VW Beetle, and what a great little car it was. I passed my test and bought it in 1973. These were and are incredible little cars. A basic design from Dr. Porsche as commissioned by Adolf Hitler. Millions were made, and many still survive. They were still made in Brazil until relatively recently.

They’re really a genuine classic. A piece of landmark design, and something that has a functionality that shames many modern cars. I wonder how many will be around and how they’ll be viewed in another 100 years or so.

I hope our stone fireplaces are around for many hundreds of years too, though I don’t expect to sell even a tiny fraction of the number of VW beetles!

Timeless and functional design almost always looks good, no matter in what era it was produced. If something works well, and does the job for which it was designed without and trouble and problems, then invariably it will look ‘right’ and will be around for a long time.

Stone fireplace design hasn’t really changed. They may be decorated in different ways, and made from different stones, but essentially they’re the same as they’ve ever been. That’s why we stick to the traditional shapes and designs. The old antique stone fireplaces still look right, so if we imitate them, then ours are sure to look right too.

Do you like traditional ‘real British ale’? I was converted to it only a couple of years ago. We had been working on the restoration of a lovely country house in Rutland. We were fitting new stone fireplaces, a small stone staircase, and about 20 stone mullion windows. In the weeks we were fitting the windows, the weather became very very hot, and by the end of each day we were exhausted, as were all the other workers on the site. The very kind owner told us not to rush off on Friday evening as he had a special surprise for us. (We were full on anticipation!)

So, come friday night, another scorcher, and we’re all whacked. Then along comes our kind employer, with a barrel of something. Turns out he’s decided to do a bit of ‘cottage industry’ traditional craft himself, and has started a micro brewery.  He’d been very taken with our traditional stone masonry skills, and liked the idea of doing something similar.

Well until this point, myself and several of our workers were really just lager drinkers, but the thought of a lovely pint of beer, at the end of a hot day, whatever sort it was, proved an irresistable temptation. The beer he had made and perfected, was a tradional bitter. All barley hops and yeast, and made in the old fashioned way…. and it was delicious, so delicious in fact that I never drank lager again, and am now a confirmed ‘real ale’ drinker.

So, it’s not just stone fireplaces that are still made in the traditional way. There are so many other little businesses out there using old methods and skills, and rediscovering the beauty of doing something in the proper way.

Have you ever been to the CLA Game Fair?  It’s not all about shooting a fishing, and in fact there is just so much there that is of interest to everyone. It’s finished this year, as it was Friday; Saturday and Sunday of last week at Ragley Hall in Warwickshire.  For owners of Stone fireplaces who like burning wood; there were several stands selling automated machines to cut your logs. You just put your bough or branch on a conveyor and it was fed into a saw that cut your logs and then sent them along another conveyor onto your log pile. (So much easier than a chainsaw!)  This of course would give you more time to sit in front of the fires in your stone fireplaces instead of cutting fuel for them.

There were also many stands with country craftsmen who could make anything. Stunning basket work patio/conservatory furniture. Lovely oak/beech chairs all made by hand. Hand make ‘clinker built’ boats for your pond or lake. The list goes on!

Of course a great deal of the people who go to this fair are country dwellers and many of course will love in farmhouses; country cottages, and perhaps even some stately homes. They are therefore appreciative of simple design, and natural products. It makes us wonder if we should have a stand next year and exhibit with some of our stone fireplaces and other stone products. Perhaps we could even build a mini stone staircase for our display.

I know our weather is not normally fantastic, and even in the hottest British weather, it seems to cool off drastically once the sun has gone down, whereas in hotter climes you can happily sit out ’till the early hours and the temp still be high enough to keep you amply warm. In the uk, once it’s dark, everyone is soon reaching for a sweater or a fleece.

Becoming more fashionable though recently, is having an outdoor fire. Just a simple fire pit made of steel works well, or one of those little clay chemineas that you see for sale in Spain. All can give sufficient extra heat to make it comfortable to stay outside.

If you have space, then the perfect answer is some sort of garden room. A sort of building with a proper roof but at least one fully open side. You then incorporate a proper stone fireplace in the wall, and you effectively have a living room outside. The other beauty of doing this method, is that if our changeable weather brings a summer shower (or summer storm!) then you have somewhere to shelter, or dry out in front of a roaring fire in your stone fireplace.

You can of course also leave soft furnishings in such a building: Probably not over the whole of winter, but certainly through the changeable days of spring and summer.

Having a roof and a stone fireplace, means you can use the room even if the weather looks like it may rain.

Ever wanted to go on an adventure in a camper van or a motor home? Maybe you’re not quite into full on ‘lying on a rough field’ camping, but still fancy the freedom afforded by avoiding hotels. We’ve got to do another tour of England France and Spain to research some more historic stone fireplaces and to find some more stone suppliers, and we’re going to do it in a camper van.  It means we can be totally flexible with our route, and we won’t be at the mercy of BA cabin crew; icelandic volcanos or Michael O’Leary charging us to breathe! The other great advantage, is that we sometimes find areas/old houses that have a lot of stone fireplaces or stone stairs that we’re interested in and where we want hang around for several days, and what better than in our own mobile hotel.

There are also a lot of derelict properties in various areas of France and Spain (we’ve come across whole deserted villages in Spain in the more remote areas. These quite often can reveal some lovely stone feature, or remains, that gives us inspiration for new designs. It can be very exciting.

Stone fireplaces can be found in the most amazing places. We once went to a little village in the Massif Central, and went into a small cafe in the square for a early morning coffee. There in the rear of the shop was the most incredibly beautiful stone fireplace, that was all the remained of a big gentlemans’ residence that used to stand on the site of the coffee shop, but had been destroyed in the war.

You never know where your next amazing stone fireplace or stone staircase may appear!

Have you used any? It’s beautiful for bathroom floors and bathrooms generally. Like the stone we use in our stone fireplaces, and unpainted oak for doors and flooring, you can’t really beat the beauty of natural products. They tend not to ‘go out of fashion’ like so much other trendy stuff.

Stone has been used in construction for many hundreds of years. It can be readily available, is immensely strong, and does not need firing (like bricks) or any other labour/time intensive processes. It does however need to be cut or worked to make it the shape and size that you need, and that of course is where the art of stonemasonry originated.

Cutting a stone fireplace is a small operation in stonemasonry terms, but none the less complicated. It is important that the right piece of stone is used, and in the right orientation. As the jambs of our stone fireplaces are made from separate blocks we also try and ensure that each component is the same colour and texture, although that is not always easy.

A stone fireplace can be incredibly simple, or it can be very complex. We do both! Our standard ranges tend to lean towards the ‘plain and simple’ as we find that this is what most of our customers prefer, but we have made some fantastically beautiful and ornate stone fireplaces for some very grand houses.

are woodpeckers on the increase? I’d never seen one ’till a few years ago, and now I see them in my garden nearly every day. It’s a green woodpecker, and is very noisy. I’m sure there’s more than one as I see it so often. At the stone yard, birds can be a bit of a problem, as they tend to ‘bomb’ the stone that we are working on outside. It doesn’t hurt the stone, but in the Spring, when the starlings are nesting in the workshop roof (which they do every year) then the parents seem to drop a ‘bomb’ on everytrip to and from the nest, and you can come back in the morning and find your stone fireplace covered in multi-coloured bird poo! Not nice!

It’s normally easy to clean off though, just blast the stone fireplaces off with a hose pipe and maybe a stiff brush and it’s all gone.

Anyway, despite birds’ apparent disregard for stone fireplaces. It is great to see previously rare birds in the garden, and I take it as a sign that we’re not completely destroying their habitats with our modern agriculture and construction.  We also have a thriving colony of grass snakes in the rough ground at the rear of the stone yard. We sometimes see some very large ones and they are a bit scary. Not that they would attack, but if one shot out from under a stone fireplace that you were moving it would really make you jump! They can grow to nearly 2 metres long, and I wouldn’t want to find that under anything!!!

At home, I’ve gone all conservation minded, which is hardly unique these days. It started after having a new roof on the house, and then the insulation of the roof and walls to reduce heating bills. Because the roof re-furb including all new rainwater goods, I incorporated the option to collect the rain water, and I’ve just got round to completing the system.

Because we use so much water during the cutting and carving of our stone fireplaces, I think we’ll be utilising a similar system at work too. In my home system, I’ve had to incorporate a lot of filtration to keep the water as clean as possible, but that won’t be so important for the stone fireplace water, as it’s only needed to make the stone working easier, and it’s doesn’t matter if there’s a bit of dust and dirt in it.

With the long spell of dry weather we’ve been having, the garden really does need a lot of water, and so having a rainwater collecting system makes a lot of sense. It’s not like you’re wasting the water, as you’re only pouring it on the ground and that’s where all water ends up one way or another if you think about it!

When we finished carving our stone items, we do like to wash them down, so you can imagine a stone fireplace takes quite a bit of water. Imagine how much it takes to wash down a stone staircase or a bit stone door surround. Mains water is no longer cheap, so I think I’ll get designing our work system without any further delay.

At last we’ve had some rain here in Leicestershire, not that we weren’t enjoying the beautiful weather. We’ve been making our stone fireplaces outside for about the last 4 weeks and yesterday was the first for ages when we got a bit wet! A lot wet actually as it rained nearly all day. Mind you, it wasn’t could, so we just donned our waterproof tops and carried on carving! The gentle fall of the rain also kept the stone nice and wet, so we didn’t need to use the hose pipe on the stone fireplaces as much as we’ve had to recently.

We’re also working on a special stone fireplace from a very historic local house. It has been damaged by builders during renovation work, so we’ve removed it, and are repairing the damage, and keeping it ’safe’ till the building works are completed.  The house is also having a sympathetic extension added, and we’re going to be making another stone fireplace of a similar style for that extension.

Building works, or restorations at least, seem to be picking up a little in our area. We’ve seen a steady increase in enquiries recently, and we seem to have a lot of stone fireplaces and stone stairs to make at the moment. Of course we’d like to think it also has something to do with our reputation for fantastic quality for a good price!

There was a fantastic programme on TV last night about Concorde: What a wonderful piece of engineering and design that was, when you consider it first flew in 1969!  It’s hard to believe that 40 years later, we’re now back to a World with no supersonic passenger air travel. As the people who designed her said; “We tookair travel from 600 mph to 1350 mph and now we’re back to 600 mph!

We couldn’t be more apart in terms of technology: We make our stone fireplaces using the methods that have been used for thousands of years. Men using simple tools and their eyes.  Nothing really different from the early stone mason (not always a fireplace maker of course) We do of course have access to power tools to cut the massive stone blocks, and we have advanced metallurgy some way, so that our tools are stronger and stay sharp longer.

The aviation industry when from the Wright brothers to Concorde in about 70 years. If they’d moved at the pace of stone masonry, we’d still be with the Wrights!

Of course some parts of the stone industry are incredibly sophisicated: One couldn’t have had large, flat, polished granite worktops a few years ago, The same with stone flooring and the cladding of buildings: The use of computer controlled cutters and polishers means stone can be an economical material on the largest of projects.

The fact is, the humble stone fireplace, cannot really be improved! A skilled mason can make one relatively easily and probably quicker than a machine so perhaps that is why our methods haven’t really changed.