We didn?t start the fire Welcome back to Period Dramas, a weekly column that alternates between rounding up historic homes on the market and answering questions we?ve always had about older structures.
We?ve reached that time of the year when it?s nearly impossible to scroll through an Instagram feed without somebody showing off a cozy fire.
While today fireplaces are more commonly the centerpiece of a hygge-decor dream, it was only a couple hundred years ago that they were one of the central sources of heat and light in a house.
In many of these houses, which primarily date from the 18th century, it?s not uncommon to find a fireplace with grander-than-usual proportions?as much as five feet tall and seven feet wide, or more in some cases. Accompanying the fireplace are usually a bread oven and a metal crane for hanging pots over the fire. These sorts of fireplaces are commonly referred to as ?cooking fireplaces? and mark the main room for food preparation. It might be tempting to label the room a ?kitchen,? but modern kitchens only formed over the last hundred years. These 18th-century rooms were more multipurpose spaces, used for living, dining, and cooking.
As technologies advanced, and coal and gas stoves offered more efficient and controllable means of preparing food, cooking with a fireplace became obsolete. Sometimes, the drafty fireplaces were entirely blocked up an plastered over, but thankfully for us old-house lovers, that?s not always the case.
Today, ...