It took fourteen panel pins and about ten minutes to get the hardboard off the front room chimney breast on Saturday 2 August, and about a teaspoon of soot to make me look as though I had gone up the chimney myself. We had been circling that board since February, knocking on it now and then like a doctor and getting nothing back but a dull hollow thud.
Behind the board
What came out from behind it was a 1930s tiled surround in a mottled beige and brown, like a stack of digestive biscuits. There were nine tiles up each side, a matching tiled hearth with one cracked tile at the front, and a square opening in the middle blocked off with a sheet of plywood. In the middle of the plywood was a small round vent grille, which seems a sensible thing to leave exactly where it is. A cupful of soot, fine as flour, slid out onto the hearth as the board came away, and from there it reached my knees, then the dust sheet and then, because the front room is not large, everything else.
Maureen saw the hardboard on the pavement and was at the gate before I had put the pins down. "Oh, that's Dennis's fire," she said. "He had a gas fire in there from October to April, and you could hear it through the wall, a sort of whump." She said Ron always claimed it was the only warm spot in the house, and that Ron did not give Dennis credit lightly.
The capped gas pipe
Karen's paperwork said the old gas fire had been taken out years ago and the pipe capped off, and I did not want to take that on trust before anyone started prising at the board. In July the Gas Safe engineer who looks after Maureen's boiler came round for the pipe. He found the stub through a gap at the bottom of the board, tested it, said it was properly capped, and described what we would see once it was exposed. That visit was £60.
On the Saturday the stub was exactly where he said it would be, a short length of copper sticking out of the floor beside the hearth with a cap on the end. We left it alone, took a photograph and sent it to him that evening. He replied with a thumbs-up.
Cleaning it up
Pickle was the first creature to sit on the new hearth, and the first to leave a line of tiny black paw prints right down the hall. The soot came out of the room with a hoover, a lot of damp cloths and a great deal of patience. The tiles themselves cleaned up with warm water, a little washing-up liquid and a soft brush, followed by a tile cleaner for the stubborn bits. Between the cloths, a stiff brush, the cleaner and a pack of dust sheets, that came to £20. With the engineer's £60, the fireplace has cost £80 so far.
The cracked tile at the front of the hearth stays as it is. Replacing it would mean a long search through salvage yards for a 1930s tile the right shade of mottle, and I'd rather it kept its crack. There are also a few chips on the surround that I will leave unmended.
What it's for
I would love to have a fire in there, and I have been told no by everyone I've asked. The chimney is unused, the survey gave it a 2, and no one is going to light anything in that opening until a roofer and a sweep have both had a look, and probably not even then. So the fireplace is for show.
Matt wants to paint the inside of the opening matt black and put candles in it. I want a trailing plant on the hearth, in a heavy pot, where the light from the front window reaches. We have agreed to do the plant now and think about candles later, and Pickle has already voted for the hearth.
Brew count: 2.
