Black lead fireside range (please help)

[Jethro]

It was the coal and Iron Age of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britton, there would have been soot in the air pretty much all the time.

[Gordon Booth]

Originally Posted by Jethro

It was the coal and Iron Age of eighteenth and nineteenth century Britton, there would have been soot in the air pretty much all the time.

Hang on, Jethro, I'm old but not that old!

[MargaretR]

Originally Posted by Gordon Booth

Hang on, Jethro, I'm old but not that old!

You are two years older than me, yet I recall the soot smuts being wiped off my face using mum's spit on a hankie.

Where were you when we had the smog?
Maybe you had a silver spoon country house upbringing in the leafy southern shires

[Gordon Booth]

Originally Posted by MargaretR

You are two years older than me, yet I recall the soot smuts being wiped off my face using mum's spit on a hankie.

Where were you when we had the smog?
Maybe you had a silver spoon country house upbringing in the leafy southern shires

Jethro mentioned ' the coal and iron age of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries'.
Even you and I don't go back that far!
There weren't many leafs in Steiner Street but we probably had nickel plated spoons.

[cashman]

Originally Posted by Gordon Booth

Would your auntie be using peat, cashman? Probably not as smoky as the rubbishy house coal we would be using. Remember 'nutty slack'?

Not as i recall Gordon was coal i used to fill the scuttle fer her.

[keith higson]

Back in the 1940-60s my mum used to cook on a fireside range, nothing wrong with the taste. Her oven had the fire directly open and under the chimney, if she wanted to heat up water she put the pan/kettle onto a platform that swung out from the oven and over the fire.

She also put salt into a pan of water which she said got rid of the soot. Another way was to light a lot of paper which was drawn up the chimney which also cleaned it.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by keith higson

Back in the 1940-60s my mum used to cook on a fireside range, nothing wrong with the taste. Her oven had the fire directly open and under the chimney, if she wanted to heat up water she put the pan/kettle onto a platform that swung out from the oven and over the fire.

She also put salt into a pan of water which she said got rid of the soot. Another way was to light a lot of paper which was drawn up the chimney which also cleaned it.

Back in the late '40s and early '50s we had one in a house on Queen St., Clayton ... never took much note of it ... it was normal for the time. I do remember having baths in the old galvanized tub in front of that fire ... and making toast with the toasting fork ... also used to throw spuds on the fire till the skins were black ... then peeling off the skin and putting some salt and a little marg on them (if we were lucky). I used to think it was a treat ... wasn't till later I found out that this was the last food in the house until my dad's next pay packet.

There seemed to come a time when folks started to junk these monsters and replace them with ugly, modern, tiled things ... sometimes with a back boiler. I remember seeing a whole pile of the old fireplaces down in Basil Brierly's junk yard off Lower Barnes St. He even had a bunch of them on his allotment back of Rishton Rd. where he kept his pigs and stabled his horse.

[Gordon Booth]

I remember chimneys setting on fire. I think the soot may have had a lot of tar in it, once they got going you could here a gentle roar-and the big lumps of glowing soot dropping down into the fireplace and the room.
The smoke outside was horrific.
I remember fire engines coming to put them out- heaven knows what the mess was like in the house when they'd poured water down the chimneys!
As Keith says, some people used to set them on fire regularly to burn off the built up soot before it got too bad.

[Barrie Yates]

I remember when we moved to Lonsdale St in '49 that the chimney sweep came and swept the chimney a couple of days after we moved in.
They were still sweeping chimneys in RAF Married Quarters in '65/66 and probably later as the first quarter we got with central heating was '71

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Gordon Booth

I remember chimneys setting on fire. I think the soot may have had a lot of tar in it, once they got going you could here a gentle roar-and the big lumps of glowing soot dropping down into the fireplace and the room.
The smoke outside was horrific.
I remember fire engines coming to put them out- heaven knows what the mess was like in the house when they'd poured water down the chimneys!
As Keith says, some people used to set them on fire regularly to burn off the built up soot before it got too bad.

We didn't just pour water down the chimney, we had an attachement that fit on the end of chimney rods, that gave a very fine alround spray, most of that turned to steam which inturn affected the burning soot higher up the chimney, we didn't leave a mess.

[Eric]

Originally Posted by cashman

Not as i recall Gordon was coal i used to fill the scuttle fer her.

Maybe he's thinking of the stuff we used to bank the fire at night, so that it would (might) still be smouldering in the morning, when you could put on a few pieces of coal, stick the blower on, and get the fire going again?

[Gordon Booth]

Originally Posted by Retlaw

We didn't just pour water down the chimney, we had an attachement that fit on the end of chimney rods, that gave a very fine alround spray, most of that turned to steam which inturn affected the burning soot higher up the chimney, we didn't leave a mess.

That's a relief, Retlaw. I always pictured that powerfull hosepipe pushed in the chimney and the results in the room below!

[cashman]

Originally Posted by Eric

Maybe he's thinking of the stuff we used to bank the fire at night, so that it would (might) still be smouldering in the morning, when you could put on a few pieces of coal, stick the blower on, and get the fire going again?

That would be "Slack" wrapped in newspaper?

[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes...I remember that and in the morning it was set like a crust.

[Gordon Booth]

Originally Posted by cashman

That would be "Slack" wrapped in newspaper?

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Yes...I remember that and in the morning it was set like a crust.

The coal man tipped some 'nutty slack' down one side of the 'coil hoyle' and proper coal on the other side so you could pick. Shovel full at night, as you say, break it up in the morning and put some coal on.
Didn't the nutty make a lot of ash, as most of it didn't burn? Fun taking the ashpan out to the bin in the morning if it was windy!