Debo Devonshire’s wood-burning stove fireplace at the Old Vicarage, Chatsworth
At the age of 85, Duchess Debo Devonshire (who died in 2014) moved out of Chatsworth. Her new home was to be the Old Vicarage in a village on the estate. The classical red wood burner, with its marble Georgian surround, provides a focal point within her expressive and comfortable living room. ‘I fell for the wood burning stove,’ recalled Debo in September 2010. ‘I spotted it in a shop in Matlock and loved its deep red colour. It is French (‘Invicta Séville’) and works perfectly – a couple of logs and the room is warm.’ She holds comparable affection for the rest of the room, too. It has ‘a sofa from Peter Jones, a wedding present, which I remember cost £30 in 1941. A wonderful 18th-century needlework carpet is the background for this and for the rest of the chairs and butler’s tray tables that are crammed with letters, magnifying glasses and other day-to-day essentials.’
Architect and designer John Wright’s compact Kensington flat with ink-black Pop fireplace
John Wright, whom we called upon in October 1984, was one of those successful Northerners who took London by storm in the early 1960s. The architect and designer was an early pioneer amid the colourful jungle of Pop furniture and this fireplace, in his London flat, is an example of his bold approach. At first glance, the interiors seem rich and luxurious, more classical than anything else. But, on longer acquaintance and closer inspection, they reveal themselves as being remarkably sparse. The visual richness is achieved through economical use of paint, fabrics, and paintings; more tomb-like than womb-like. Not in any sinister way, mind, but in its calm, beyond-the-world approach. He designed the black perspex table and marble fireplace in the same inky shade, to match.
Charlotte and Will Fischer’s fireplace-filled Aldourie Castle in the Scottish Highlands
We couldn’t run a story on fireplaces without reference to Jamb, the prestigious fireplace, antique-furniture and lighting shop on Pimlico Road run by Charlotte Freemantle and Will Fischer. One great example: in 2022, Jamb were commissioned to design the interiors for Aldourie Castle, a rambling Scottish Baronial affair on the banks of Loch Ness in the Highlands (WoI Sept 2023). The architect Ptolemy Dean, who worked on the castle’s restoration, removed a chimney breast that had been added to the Laird’s Room during a remodelling in the early 20th century. The original outer stone surround thus revealed, Will Fisher designed the carved Scottish-limestone inner one to complement it.
Lillian Williams’s folie in Provence, complete with Louis XVI chimneypieces
Exquisitely pretty and witty, wardrobe consultant Lillian Williams’s folie in Provence perfectly reflects her deep passion for bourgeois life in 18th-century France. ‘I’m a hideous jaded snob,’ she boasted in our June 1992 issue, ‘but so is everyone else. They look at things with a magnifying glass.’ This was her explanation for her meticulous attention to detail vis-a-vis every inch of the place’s interiors. For instance, each piece of furniture has been selected to match the Louis XVI chimneypiece (one of several across the building) in the salon d’essayage – a petite boudoir to gossip in with a lady friend.
Detmar Blow’s Long Room and Big Room fireplaces at Hilles House, Gloucestershire
When art dealer Detmar Blow brought his late wife, Isabella, to Hilles House, his magnificent Arts and Crafts manor house in Gloucestershire, it was love at first sight (WoI Sept 2010). The fashion icon took up her role as châtelaine with gusto, affectionately describing it as ‘Wuthering Heights on a withering budget’. The coat of arms above the fireplace in the Big Hall is that of James I, and contains the motto (in Latin) ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’. Detmar senior copied it from an original at Dorfold Hall in Cheshire, installing one replica here and another at Broome Park, the house he was refurbishing for Lord Kitchener during World War I. And less grand, but no less spectacular, is the fireplace in the Long Room. Sometimes, it’s what’s around a fire that makes it hot stuff.
An shell-filled fireplace in Exmouth, with an Adam-style paper-panelled fire surround
In October 1984, we landed on this hexadecagonal, five-storied gingerbread house near Exmouth; built by two Misses Parminter – sisters Jane and Mary – in 1794, it’s been handed down through the female line ever since. (Hexadecagonal, by the way, means 16-sided). There are many fireplaces (positioned on the resulting many walls), but this one, filled with shells, is the most splendid. These delightful husks are overflows from the grotto gallery, positioned 35 feet above the ground at the top of the house. It is completely covered in shells, graded by shape, size and colour, which are interspersed with pictures of birds made with their subjects’ own feathers.
The fireplace surround Will Le Clerc marbleised himself in his Kent village cottage
Head of personnel at Liberty, Will Le Clerc spends much of his spare time poring over sale catalogues and online auctions, devising new ways to squeeze in yet more chattels from England’s great country houses into his diminutive dwelling in a pretty Kent village (WoI Jan 2025). Or he’s rolling up his sleeves to faux-marble a fireplace, as we see here. To create your own marmoreal effects, you can hand-paint the details, use spray paint, or apply acid stains to a surface. Another tip: you can use shaving cream and ink to create a marble design on fabric.
Pablo Bronstein’s delftware fire surround in his Kentish bolthole
As DFL (down from London) gentrification seeped in along the southeastern edge of England, this Kentish house had been bought and done up (badly) as a holiday let when Pablo Bronstein and his partner Leo Boix found it: lifeless, cold, boring, all magnolia paint, plasterboard and beige carpet (WoI April 2017). There was just enough left – a wall of panelling, a late Georgian staircase, a casement window, stone flags and that kitchen range – to convince them that the house could be revived, its character rediscovered and reconstructed. ‘I fantasised about pulling off plasterboard to reveal more panelling, but there wasn’t any,’ says Pablo. But there were wide, old floorboards under the beige carpets and fireplace embrasures in every room – though Pablo had to take a sledgehammer to walls covered with concrete to find two of them. Most interventions are new. For instance, the artist designed the wooden chimneypiece in the theatrical living room – a tropical cocktail of turquoise and school-poster-paint green – which works a treat alongside gilded brackets and Oriental china.
Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive interiors stories like this one, direct to your inbox
.jpg)
