We are often asked to investigate what appears to be an inglenook fireplace,one that has been ‘bricked up’ at some later stage.
With our extensive understanding of period properties and a bit of detective work we can usually inform the client that they do indeed have one under the modern infill.
The discovery of an inglenook fireplace is always an exciting one!

This was just the case on a recent investigation to a 16th C timber framed home,where the current kitchen clearly had all the right signs- see the image above to view the bricked up inglenook and later posts to see images of it during and after restoration.
The inglenook fireplace was certainly there and would have been a good size, but on opening it up the masonry and timbers had clearly suffered a great deal by being enclosed in cement render for many years.

Having removed the cement render and plaster,it soon became clear that the bressumer beam over the inglenook had also burnt right through at some time in the distant past and maybe that was the reason it was infilled.

The bressumer beam( the beam which spans the opening over the fireplace) could no longer carry the load of the flue above, but the clients really wanted to fit an Aga range ,so we needed to take out the burnt through beam and replace it- sounds easy, but see the pics and later updates to see how we managed it-quite a challenge………….