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

A substantial body of evidence has been assembled for example, for south west Wales, where the phenomenon of ‘lateral outshuts’ has been recorded. These are stone projections from the main wall, associated with large chimneys and a kind of side-room or porch. A broadly mid-16th century date seems to be applicable in some cases, though they range into the early 18th century, and the social level is that of peasant houses. There are also massive end-wall outshots combined with chimneys in certain parts of Wales.(34) These phenomena characterise only limited areas of South-West Wales. They appear to parallel examples in Scotland, of which ethnologists and architects have only recently begun to take notice. One preliminary survey has been undertakeni35) which looks briefly at surviving examples, and at illustrations in publications, drawings and paintings, but it is already clear that the data is more extensive.

The main concentration of hearth outshots associated with a living space that usually also has its own small window, is in South-East Scotland (Figs. 3-4.), with some examples north of Edinburgh along the coast, and others in the west, north and south of Glasgow. These outshot units are accessible from the main kitchen area through a wide, arched entrance (Pl. IV.: 2.). It may be significant that such a stone arch, whether for an outshot or any other kind of fireplace, was originally called the brace, a word which developed differentiated senses later and came to be applied to the canopy chimney also. Outshot chimneys are found in buildings covering a social spread from medium-sized farms to the homes of small landowners. Even if none is likely to be as early as the earliest of the apparent Welsh parallels, nevertheless they seem to range through the 17th and 18th centuries. There is at least a strong possibility that insofar as they represent aspects of the development of social patterns, they stand alongside the great fireplaces of medieval castles, many of which had projecting hoods in stone which remained as characteristic features till the 15th century. Some had recesses that served as buffets or dressers where displays of plate became common in the 15th century,)36) and this kind of associated activity suggests particular forms of use of such fireplace areas that go beyond the basic need for warmth. They provide more intimate spaces within the greater space of large halls or rooms, and it seems likely that the concept of such a space gave significant motivation to the later adoption of comparable areas, appearing as outshot chimneys at intermediate social levels, and as central or gable hoods at lower levels, including urban dwellings (cf. Fig. 5.). It was from the latter class that the relatively small scale hanging chimney, too limited in size for any activity other than smoke-removal, must have developed, and spread as part of the general improvements in agriculture and in housing that marked the second half of the 18th century. The spread did not go so fast, however, that it obscured all evidence of a more distant past, such as is revealed by the central hearths of the north and west of Scotland, some of which have remained to be recorded at the present day. Though canopy chimneys could be and certainly were used for hanging foodstuffs to be conserved through drying and through the preservative effects of

smoke, the kind of development outlined here hardly supports a recently expressed view that they originated in the need for meat preservation.!37)

Though much more research must be done to confirm and develop details, the Scottish data does raise questions of wide ethnological significance.

Firstly, the evidence of the last two centuries appears to present a picture that the advance of improvements has itself generalised and simplified. Though older hearth forms, represented by the peat-fired central hearth, survived in the north and west, it is now clear that in the more lowland areas of the country there was an earlier degree of sophistication in hearth forms that largely disappeared. This obscuring effect of a period of social upswing is one that must be reckoned with in ethnological thinking.

Secondly, the concept of ‘gesunkenes Kulturgut’, of cultural items descending the social scale and spreading more widely as they go, should be scrutinised very carefully. The demarcation of living spaces alongside or around a hearth, within greater entities, is expressed in different ways in different social contexts, but though the above concept appears to be supported by the broadly chronological sequence of massive stone castle hearth, substantial stone outshot hearth and chimney, and canopy or hood in lighter materials, nevertheless the basic point may be less one of descent in the social scale than of expressions in different ways of a fundamental human need to create a greater degree of group intimacy around the warmth of the glowing fire.

Thirdly, and finally, the sophistication in the Scottish evidence requires a deepening of research that will involve burgh records; further consideration of the role of division of living space through the use of internal partitions, and the relationship of the hearth to such partitions; the relationship of the hearth to sitting and sleeping arrangements at various periods in time, in different localities and at different social levels; and the roles of outshots and other specially demarcated areas in neighbouring countries. Such evidence patiently assembled, will demonstrate that in spite of the apparently simple open-hearth tradition that was general till well through the 19th century, there were older, now partly-concealed traditions, which fit into wider European traditions. Scotland is also part of Europe.

(Edinburgh) Alexander Fenton

(34) P. Smith, Houses of the Welsh Countryside (HMSO), 1975, 20—21, 24, 159—60; see also J. Romilly Allen, Old Farm- Houses with Round Chimneys near St. David’s, in Archaeologia Cambrensis (6th Series), II/l (1902), 1—25.

(35) R. Marshall, The Ingleneuk Hearth in Scottish Buildings: A Preliminary Survey, in Vernacular Building, 8 (1983—84), 28—48.

(36) Cf. W. M. Mackenzie, The Medieval Castle in Scotland, 1927, 117—8.

(37) B. Walker, The Hanging Chimney in Scottish Meat Preservation, in Vernacular Building, 9 (1985), 41—56; B. Walker, Up the Luml, in Scots Magazine, 125.6 (1986), 607—611.

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