Gunda Béla et al. (szerk.): Ideen, Objekte und Lebensformen. Gedenkschrift für Zsigmond Bátky - István Király Múzeum közelményei. A. sorozat 29. (Székesfehérvár, 1989)

Alexander Fenton: The Hearth as a Marker of Social Change: the Scottish Example

against a gable is recorded from Orkney and Shetland, Caithness, and as far south as Aberdeenshire in Northeast Scotland.(18) They were no doubt more widely spread, however.

Movement to the gable or inclusion in a cross wall related mainly to the kitchen hearth. This development was not only a mark of social change in itself, but also coincided with the adoption of fireplaces in best rooms, which began to appear about the same time amongst the peasantry, as units in dwelling-houses separate from those reserved for the business of everyday living, and reserved for solemn or festive occasions and for prestige visitors. It was in such best rooms that chimneys in the thickness of the gable began to be adopted in the late 18th and 19th centuries. This led to a phonomenon that might be described as a dichotomy of domestic prestige, for though the innovative grate, often coal-burning, and the gablechimney, were to be found in one end of the house, at the same time in the kitchen end, the open, floor-level, peat-burning fire, sometimes centrally placed but increasingly set by a wall, with an overhanging canopy above to carry off smoke, was used (Fig. 1.). It is, however, part of the complex nature of change that these kitchen hearths, though seemingly primitive by contrast with the best room fireplaces, nevertheless reflected social progress also, especially in their provision for smoke removal by means of canopy chimneys. Social progress, however, was tempered by economic factors, and since peat was the normal, cheap fuel outside the coalburning areas, the kitchen hearths continued to be adapted to the use of that fuel, in many cases until well into the 20th century.

The chronology of the general introduction of gable chimneys (Fig. 1.) has not been worked out in a fully detailed way, but in the late 18th and early 19th centuries they became the norm in best rooms, and later in the 19th and early 20th centuries in kitchens also. Regular chimneys were appearing in Shetland, the remotest island group to the North-East of Scotland, in the early 1800s, and by the 1830s were fairly common. In Caithness, the most north-easterly of the Scottish counties, there were a few improved cottages with a chimney in one of the rooms by 1812, though such innovations were still rare in the 1840s in some parts of the county.i20) In Aberdeenshire, in Northeast Scotland, best-room fires with gable chimneys were in use for special occasions by the late 18th century.f21) Further south, however, the presence of fireplaces with gable chimneys in the two main rooms was much more common(22). Wherever there was coastal access to coal carried by sea, or in the neighbourhood of coal-bearing areas, the rate of adoption of one or more gable chimneys was faster.

In terms of variety of types, the best-room fireplace need not be considered to any extent. It was a singlepurpose fire, for heating only, and it normally took the form of an iron grate set in metal surrounds, without fixed ledges on which to rest utensils (PI. III.: 1.). Its shape and dimensions were fairly standard everywhere. More important for ethnological purposes, however, was the kitchen hearth and the form of the hood or canopy over it. To assess this along its likely line of diffusion, it is necessary to start in the south of Scotland.

In this area, the term ‘Lodian (Lothian) brace' has been

recorded. In a manuscript source dated to before 1850, it is described as: ‘A grate of a particular form set up against the gavel (gable) projecting all its width from the wall, two timber pillars at the corners supporting the timber lum (chimney) which ascends about three feet from the fire-place. The reik (smoke) does not ascend through a vent within the end wall or gable but through a timber frame connected with this brace and set up against the gavel.’(23)

Obviously, this describes a gable hearth with a wooden hood above it (Fig. 1.). The date of the source is near the middle of the 19th century; however, the term is over half a century older, for it is recorded much farther north, in Perthshire in Central Scotland, in 1771, when a new farm was being built. It was a good house with a stair and a loft, and four windows with glass panes. The kitchen, which was itself lofted, was fitted with a ‘Lothian Brase’ which cost 5 shillings.!24) The fact that the adjective ‘Lothian’ is used suggests that knowledge and use of the wooden hood was already spreading north from the area that gave it this name, by the third quarter of the 18th century.

The name here applied to this kind of gable canopy chimney demonstrates that the area south of Edinburgh was subject to innovation in the 18th century. There is evidence to suggest other solutions in the same area to the problem of improving smoke removal from central hearths. It is said, for example, that what was called the ‘round-about fire side’ was universally used in kitchens in Peeblesshire. This was described as :

‘a circular grate placed upon the floor about the middle of the kitchen, with a frame of lath and plaster, or spars and mats, suspended over it... like an inverted funnel, for conveying the smoke; the whole family sitting round the fire within the circumference of the inverted funnel’.(25)

A similar type was known in the neighbouring county of Roxburgh. It consisted of a wicker frame plastered with a mixture of straw, mud or clay.(26) In Selkirkshire,

(18) R. Dinnie, An Account of the Parish of Birse 1865,16.

(19) A. Edmondston, A View of the Ancient and Present State of the Zetland Islands, II, 48; C. Ployen, Erindringer fra en Reise til Shetlandsoerne, Orknoerne og Skot/and (1839) translated as Reminiscences of Shetland 1896, 201.

(20) J. Henderson, General View of the Agriculture of Caithness, 1812; New Statistical Account, V (1845), 65 (parish of Olrig).

(21) G. S. Keith, General View of the Agriculture of Aberdeenshire, 1811, 129—130; Old Statistical Account, VI (1793), 387 (parish of Lumphanan); XXI (1799), 142 (parish of Monquhitter).

(22) G. Robertson, General View of the Agriculture of Kincardine, 1813, 184, 1876; Old Statistical Account, XVIII (1796), 104 (parish of Gargunnock, Stirlingshire).

(23) Crawford Manuscripts a. 1850 (National Library of Scotland), quoted in Scottish National Dictionary s. v. Lowden.

(24) J. H. Stewart, Highland Settlement Evolution in West Perthshire. Development and Change in the Parish of Balquhidder from the Fifteenth Century to 1851, 1986, 261 (unpublished typescript PhD. thesis); also in Insights into the Building Industry in Eighteenth Century Perthshire, in Vernacular Building 8 (1983—84), 58.

(25) C. Findlater, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Peebles, 1802, 39—40.

(26) R. Douglas, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Roxburgh, 1813, 29.

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