In one of the rooms on the ground floor of the middle wing we finally uncovered the original fireplace. This room was probably built during the early to mid 1700's and I think probably quite cheaply. Then in the 1800's it was renovated and given a facelift by having wood panelling fitted all around it. Most of this was quite rotten so we removed it. There was also an ugly modern fireplace that we took out. To each side of this fireplace were
two short walls also covered in the panelling. I thought that there could be an old fireplace under there but also wondered if they were just bricks supporting the chimney above. Until I could see just what we had there I did not want to mess with it and was considering to leave the panels on these two surrounds. Once we had taken the earth out ready for a concrete
base going in I could finally look behind the panelling and see that there was in fact a fireplace in there. About 30 minutes later we had ripped the old wood panelling off to reveal a fireplace from the 1700's, albeit a cheap one! It only has an oak beam for the mantle, sadly no marble in sight. But the stone work is quite nice and when we clean it all up and repoint it I am sure that it will look really good. This room will be a bedroom and the bed will fit nicely into the fireplace.
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