Stone Fireplace, Stone Staircase, Limestone Fireplaces

You’re either artistic or you’re not. Some people can just draw; paint, carve or sculpt. Others have no natural affinity with such talents. Our masons all vary in the type of work they do, but all have the ability to visualise something beautiful in a solid block of stone. The massive blocks come to us on flat bed articulated lorries, and they are stacked 3 high in our yard. When we get your order for a stone fireplace, we go and choose a block from which we can cut sufficiently sized sections to make up the stone fireplace that you’ve chosen.

But we’re essentially artists in 3D (or at least our masons are) They can ’see’ the fireplace within the rough blocks, and work out how to make any attractive grain, run though the stone fireplace sections in a way that makes the best of the beauty of the stone. No two pieces ever look the same though, and that is all part of the challenge.

There can be few more beautiful materials than natural stone. It can have any sort of texture; millions of colours, and of course a 1000 uses. for our stone fireplaces, we use limestone, mainly from quarries in Northern France, but we can use any stone that you would like to use assuming it is readily available. Often referred to as Jurassic Limestone, this particular stone is particularly beautiful. Its sedimentary layers settled down many millions of years ago, and as the sediment settled it included layers of different colours, giving some pieces wonderful swirls and patterns. A stone fireplace made from this stone is an incredibly beautiful thing.

It’s not just layers of colour that this stone contains: sometimes a sea shell, a pebble, a fossil was trapped within those layers, and millions of years later, when our masons are cutting into the giant blocks, we sometimes find these shells, or the indentation where they lay, and this adds yet another element to the beauty of your stone fireplace.

Of course we never know what a particular stone fireplace will ‘contain’ until it is finally cut: We may find something on the first cut, or the last. We may find nothing at all. Different seams in the quarry produce different things. Perhaps because that seam was on a bend in a river where shells accumulated, or maybe it was one shore line. We’ll never really know.

How intrigueing though, to have a stone fireplace that contains such amazing history!

Stone fireplaces are of course regular props in film and TV. There’s not many a period drama that doesn’t have the hero standing broodingly next to a stone fireplace, perhaps drying out from a rained soaked horse ride, or some heroic action! Gothic horrors are also a good place to see the stone fireplace used as a prop. Just think of the all those spooky castles housing the various frankensteins and draculas: They all had their own massive stone fireplaces containing roaring log fires, as their ‘victims’ were welcomed in from the cold night! I’m sure there must be plenty of more contemporary examples too? Surely Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, or Naomi Watts, have stood in front of a piece of carved stone at some time in one of their roles!

There are many more examples in tv of course Whether it’s a stone fireplace in a Dickens or Bronte dramatisation, or maybe even something more humble like Emerdale or Heartbeat!

So when you’re next glued to the telly on a cold wintry sunday afternoon, and wishing you were in front of a real roaring fire, you may just see a wonderful stone fireplace featured in the programme you’re watching it may inspire you to commission one of your own.

Fireplaces can of course be made from many materials, and there are companies that offer every option. Historically of coarse they were most often made from brick; stone; or some other masonry or clay based substance. This is because those materials are resistant to heat and because they were used for all aspects of dwelling construction.

Stone of course was always used for the grander buildings, as it was incredibly resilient to the elements, (and to attack from invaders) it’s not unusual to find vast castle walls in an otherwise ruined castle, with stone fireplaces still intact, built into those walls. It’s not hard to imagine the Laird standing in the great hall or dining room that contained these stone fireplaces: Piled high in winter with a roaring fire of big logs, and maybe a suckling pig roasting on a spit over the flames.

A stone fireplace was even then, the centre piece of a room, not least because castles were invariably of course, freezing cold! They built their stone fireplace big in those days, so you could heat more people, and burn bigger ‘piles’ of logs. This truly was the only source of heat, and it must have been bitterly cold in a chamber without a fire.

That’s of course why you find stone fireplaces in most castle rooms. Smaller perhaps than those in the great halls, but even a bed chamber needed some source of heat to fend of hyperthermia to the old toes should they peep from under the bed covers.

The heating season is definately nearly here, so the daunting prospect of large heating bills is with us. So anything you can do to keep your heating cheaper, and perhaps help the environment, is worth pursuing. The easiest way to do that is to have an open fire, or a wood stove.  Assuming you have a chimney already, you can normally have a wood fire without any difficulty. Just get a dog grate or firebasket of some sort and away you go. Hopefully you have a lovely stone fireplace to sit in front of, but you can always buy one later if you haven’t got one already.

If you haven’t used your stone fireplaces for a while, then it’s probably best to have the chimney swept, or at least have it checked to make sure it’s not obstructed in any way. Birds have a habit of nesting in chimneys, and if you haven’t used it for a while there can be a big accumulation of twigs and other horrible stuff.

If you haven’t used the chimney for even longer, or perhaps it’s in a house you’ve recently moved to, then it could sometimes have been capped to stop rain coming in or draughts. You’ll usually be able to see that from the ground, but if in doubt, a chimney sweep will soon establish if it’s blocked off.

In the end, it’s all worth doing, as there really is no substitute for a  log fire roaring away in a lovely stone fireplace. It’s also cheaper than mains gas or oil, and always ‘feels’ warmer than a white steel radiator!

Autumn is here, the leaves are turning to a hundred shades of gold red and orange, and the mist lies in the valleys and at the woodside every morning. It’s one of the nicest times of year, and it means the frosts are about to start. Now apart from perhaps having to scrape your windscreen, and take it easy on slippy roads on the way to work, there’s not much to worry about. The great thing is it means you can go and pick those sloes from the blackthorn, for your sloe gin! It’s such a great winter ‘activity’ to sit in front of the fire roaring away in your stone fireplace, with your feet on the hearth and a good tumbler of sloe gin in your hand!

Of course is doesn’t have to be sloe gin; it could equally be sloe vodka, or even damson gin… they’re all equally tasty, and a perfect winter tipple.  The reason the sloes were traditionally left until after the first frost is because their skins are very tough, and the frost would tend to split them, and thus make the infusion into your chosen spirit that much easier.

Sometimes when there was little frost, each individual sloe was pricked with a fork (very laborious) or more simple, put them in the freezer just long enough to imitate a frost, but try not to let them freeze solid.

So, get your wellies on, load your stone fireplaces up with logs and go and the scour the hedgerows for those lovely berries… but watch the thorns!

Ever been on a rural tour of france? Love ‘em or hate ‘em… the French have a knack at building some of the most stunning houses in the world. Whether it be a small farmhouse, or a full blown chateau, the French have always had a gift for stunning design in there houses. Likewise stone fireplaces too. Invariably you can visit an old house in France, and it will have stunning internal features. Even the most rustic french farmhouse will often have a stone fireplace or even several stone fireplaces, that are literally stunning. They seemed to have any eye for proportion and design that other cultures lacked.

We try to incorporate some of the ideas the French used in their designs. (not just the use of their limestone!) Make the blocks substantial. This gives a feeling of solidity, substance and longevity. Make it big! There’s something comforting about sitting in front of a really BIG impressive fireplace: If possible with an equally big open fire roaring away within it!

Don’t make it too fussy! Ok the French could do some pretty ornate stuff… look at Louis IV furniture for example, and a few of their chateaux were pretty OTT. But they generally had a knack for incredible understated elegance, and it’s a little bit of that which we try and incorporate into our fireplaces.

So, if you go on a little tour of France, and you see a fireplace like the ones I’m talking about, then take a crafy picture and send it to us, and we’ll give you a quotation to make one the same for your own home.

There’s a small farm near our workshop in Leicestershire where we have sometimes stored stone for our stone fireplaces. It has large areas of old concrete yards, and over the years the owner has seen lots of grass snakes on the edges of these concrete yards. He assumes it’s because the snakes ‘nest’ and breed under the concrete slab and that it gets warm in the sun…. which they like apparently.

Anyway, he hadn’t seen many this year, everytime we went down there with some stone, or a stone fireplace, we’d have a look around and see if we could see any, but to no avail. We did however find some skins (snakes shed their skins quite regularly) so we knew the elusive things were still there.

Anyway, it rained for the first time early this week, and whether they little things needed a shower or not we don’t know, but several appeared out on the concrete, apparently enjoying the feel of rainwater on them! Certainly that’s what it appeared like anyway. Some were only babies, about 6″ long, but the farmer has seen very large ones over the years. He’s glad to know the ‘colony’ is still doing well.

Don’t worry though, we give all our stone fireplaces a thorough check over before we deliver, so you won’t be unwrapping them and finding hissing sid waiting for you inside, we promise!

October the 6th 2009. We’ve not had rain here for about five weeks, and the grass was beginning to look like Spain! Yellow and bare on all the verges and the lawn not needing mowing for weeks. (which is great if you don’t enjoy lawn mowing!)

The fact is, we don’t really start thinking about cuddling up in front of a stone fireplace until the weather starts getting chilly and the nights start drawing in, and certainly the weather has taken a while to change this year… not that we in the uk will complain about that!

So, with three months (roughly) to go till Christmas, we need to make sure our logs are ready, our chimney is swept, and our stone fireplaces are ready for the wintry season. So make sure your wood is dry; no birds have nested in your chimney; and that have your stove functioning well, or your new dog basket ready and waiting.#

There’s something beautiful about a plume of smoke gently rising from the chimney of an old cottage or farmhouse while all around outside is frosty and cold. Go for a long walk in the winter, and as you approach that lovely smell of smoke, you can picture where you’ll soon be…. in an arm chair, with your feet on the hearth of your stone fireplace, and mug of tea…. (or glass of good malt) in your hand. What finer vision is there really.

What’s the first thing you think of when you think of a van? My guess is that it will be a Ford Transit van! This is the most common vehicle of choice for the infamous ‘white van man’ and there must be tens of thousands on the roads of the uk and millions worldwide.

Our stone fireplaces have been delivered in transit vans for 30 years! We’ve use various carriers and haulage companies, but they nearly all stayed loyal to the good old transit. We don’t really trust the bigger carriers to deliver a stone fireplace, as invariably they are shunted from depot to depot, and handled by lots of different workers who don’t really care about the things that they’re shunting around. We used to get whole corners knocked off a stone fireplace where some gung-ho forklift driver had crashed into it for example!

No, we use efficient, small ‘man-and-van’ operators. They load your stone fireplaces up at our works, and unload them at your door. No intermediate drop offs or different people mis-handling your purchase. These guys are happy to help, and will put your fireplace where you want it, as long as you provide some muscle to help them.

So next time you get a delivery from us, or any other small carrier… have a look what he’s driving, and I bet it’s a ford transit!