“Moorlands” The Park Buxton

During the past few days I have visited again the first house I ever designed, Moorlands, Buxton, Derbyshire. In many respects it shows imitative work, of course, but the fireplace had some of the advantages of the ingle fireplaces of olden times. The light of the fire filled the whole recess, making it contrast pleasantly and invitingly with the rest of the room. The ingle made it possible to have the grate standing and the fire burning right out in the room, protected from cross draughts. This resulted in a great proportion of the heat which in an ordinary fireplace goes up the chimney coming into the room, and gave three sides of the fire on which there could be seats instead of only one. The more completely a fire-grate is recessed into a wall the more heat goes up the chimney and the fewer are the points of view from which the fire can be seen. If an ingle is to be a success one essential is that a full view of the fire is obtained from all seats within the ingle. The design is at any rate a simple straightforward one, depending for any charm it might have on frank acknowledgment of the facts of its construction and of its uses. Well, upon my recent visit I discovered that the present owner had built out a chimneybreast projecting into this ingle and in this chimneybreast had placed a fire-grate of the ordinary type recessed into the wall. The consequences were that any practical advantages the ingle had before were gone and the effect was only that of a fireplace within a fireplace. The fire could only be seen by those who sat in front of it. The ingle had become one in which no one would ever sit, because the brickwork of the new chimney-breast would prevent their seeing the fire, and it would always remain a dark recess behind the range of the ruddy rays from the fire. It could never again glow, open, spacious and inviting; it had been reduced to an absurdity. [B Parker:  The Craftsman, 18 June 1910 page 334]

Reference           The Craftsman Volume 18 June 1910 page 334