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

the fair-sized kitchen of a farm was described as having a fireplace nearly in the centre, with a ‘long chair’ (settle) on one side and various seats on the other.(27) We seem to have here a specific phenomenon, an inverted canopy hanging from the roof, and not set against the gable (Fig. 1.). It was evidently large enough to form a unit, almost a room within a room, capable of seating the family around the fire in the evenings.

The ‘Lothian brace’ was probably not as large, but a mid-nineteenth century version recorded in Lanarkshire was so arranged that a wooden settle for the young farm lads could sit in the 6ft. (183 cm.) space between the fire and the gable wall, under a hood described as a squaremouthed box like an inverted hopper, about 5 to 6ft. (152—183 cm.) wide, placed about 6ft. (183 cm.) above the fire, and contracting to 2ft. (61 cm.) square as it ascended. By this date, there was an arrangement by which the smoke was carried into a part chimney in the thickness of the gable near its top, or else the hood was taken through the ridge alongside the gable, in the form of a box projecting 3ft. (91 cm.), and wound around with straw ropes.(28) Because of the seating arrangements, it could be suggested that this type of Lanarkshire chimney is a cross between the ‘Lothian brace’ and the inverted central funnel.

What is clear, in spite of imperfect evidence, is that the areas around Edinburgh were seeking improved forms of smoke-removal in the 18th and 19th centuries, in spite of occasional survivals of older systems, such as at the farm of Eastfield, Lanarkshire, in the late 19th century (PI. III.: 2.). Here a unique photograph shows a large kitchen with a flagstone floor, a lady carding wool for spinning as she sits on a wooden settle, and a leg of pork or mutton hanging from the ceiling joists. Against one wall is a large ‘swey’ or crane, made of wood, for hanging pots above the fire. The fire, seemingly of coal, is set in an elongated iron brazier standing on four legs above an ash-pit standing well out towards the middle of the floor. There is not the faintest trace of a chimney.

These southern varieties of hearth and chimney give rise to a number of thoughts:

(1) they represent superior versions of the simple smokeopening in the ridge of the roof, such as survived till recent times in the north and west of Scotland, usually in the form of a square or circular frame, often of wood, that protruded above the ridge and was thatched around and bound with ropes;

(2) they provide evidence that central hearths were to be found not only in north and central Scotland, but also in the south, up to the end of the 18th century;

(3) the diffusion of the ‘Lothian brace’ to Perthshire by 1777 shows a northwards movement of the southern form. Can its adoption further north be seen as a further diffusion process?

(4) the positioning of the canopy chimneys of the south with sitting space beneath the hood, is in some degree reminiscent of a type of stone-built outshot hearth, the distribution of which is densest in the area of the inverted-funnel hoods.

The last two points must now be looked into more closely.

The gable canopy chimney was generally knows as a ‘hanging chimney’ or ‘hingin’ lum’ (Fig. 2., Pl. IV.: 1.). The term is as old as 1746, occurring in a reference to

Fig. 3.: An outshot chimney of 17th century date at the house of Lord Fountainhall, in Prestonpans, near Edinburgh. The wide fireplace inside had seats around it. It was made into a recess off the room in the 19th century. From MacGibbon and Ross, V (1892), 53—54. Cl8525.

‘a mid Spire Wall (a wall or screen between the fire and the door) and two hanging Chimneys, One Pound twelve shillings’.(29) This source is for Angus in East Central Scotland. On the farm of Easter Dowald on the Abercairny Estate, Stirlingshire, a ‘hanging chimney’ was valued at 5 shillings in January lSlO.f30) Since the valuation affected the amount an incoming tenant had to pay to an outgoing one, it would seem that the chimney had been there some time before 1810. Further north in Banffshire, one writer showed awareness of the processes of change, by observing circa 1825 that ‘Hinging Chumlies’ followed in time the arrangement whereby there was only a smoke-opening in the roof.(31)

On this evidence, gable canopy chimneys had become or were becoming common in southern, central and northeast Scotland in the second half of the 18th century. The specific ‘Lothian brace’ type came from the south, but it cannot be quite certain that there was a more general innovative movement from south to north. It is possible, indeed, that we should look to the larger towns as the points from which hanging chimneys spread to the countryside, for a regulation dated 1725 in Dundee forbade any tradesman to ‘build or rebuild any clay, plaister, or timber chimneys or Lumms within this Burgh’,(32) The fire risk

(27) J. Bathgate, Aunt Janet's Legacy to her Nieces (o.l832). 1901, 27.

(28) New Statistical Account, VI (1845), 8312.

(29) J. C. Jessop, Education in Angus 1931, 90.

(30) B. Walker, The Hanging Chimney in Scottish Meat Preservation, in Vernacular Building, 9 (1985), 41.

(31) J. F. S. Gordon, Chronicles of Keith, 1880, ix.

(32) Charters, Writs and Public Documents of the Royal Burgh of Dundee 1292—1880, 1880, 164.

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