I do sweep a lot of these Town and Country stoves, this example which I recently swept in Bassingbourne is the Town & Country Pickering Wood-Burning Stove. The most common models that I come across being the Little Thurlow, the Bransdale and the Thornton Dale. I don’t think they are the chimney sweeps favorite stove to sweep, as they have to be largely dismantled to access the flue. This is not so bad, but if the vermiculite bricks are cracked, as they frequently are, the stove is difficult to reassemble. This said, all the customers who I sweep for who have Town & Country stoves swear by them for their fuel efficiency and heat output. In fact, I have not come across a customer who has a Town & Country stove who is displeased with their performance. Well each to there own!!!

Town and Country Fires is a family run business based in Pickering on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors. Once farmers, the Thurlow family took the big decision to diversify and as a consequence started the stove business in 1977.

Gaining a wealth of experience over the years and using a combination of old and new techniques has led to the company developing and manufacturing some of the best, energy efficient, solid fuel and wood burning stoves in the world.

Town & Country stoves

1 Enterprise Way
Thornton Road Industrial Estate,
Pickering, North Yorkshire. YO18 7NA

Telephone: 01751 474 803
Fax: 01751 475 205

https://www.townandcountryfires.co.uk/contact/

Probably about half of the large contract we do for Eastlight Housing is sweeping Parkray Room Heaters. You would be surprised just how many of them are still around and functioning efficiently; I rather think that they are indestructible. Here I am rotary power sweeping this appliance as it is on 8” terracotta liners and tends towards the tarry side of things. Yes, 1940’/1950’s technology, but you would be surprised just how many I still see about the area still going strong. Many of these were installed in local authority and military housing as an efficient way of producing hot water and heating for the home. The majority would have run a back boiler and many still do. I see a large number of these when doing contract work for some of the local community housing associations. But I also see them elsewhere like in the old, enlisted men’s housing on Stradishall Airfield (now belonging to the prison service or private accommodation), or for example in Guildhall Way Ashdon. I have included photographs of some of the examples I sweep, and as you can see, they come in a variety of different models and designs. I always think the look rather modern and space age in a 1950’s Si-Fi retro sort of way? What do you think? Many people don’t like them and rip them out and replace them with a modern stove, but I quite like them, they are certainly very durable and robust, just look how long many of them have lasted and they are still working efficiently today! The only difficulty these days is getting parts for them when the internal components of the stove eventually wear out. This said it is still possible to get parts for some of the later models if you are really determined.

I recently completed the HETAS Servicing and Maintenance 5 Year Refresher Course and as previously have the certificate to prove it! It was a day long course completed at the H Firkins Training Centre in Milton Keynes and there were 7 other chimney sweeps undertaking the course along with myself. The course was course as others I have attended was delivered by the excellent Josh Firkins, whose clear concise explanations and extensive knowledge make these courses a pleasure to attend. The course was packed with lots of interesting material and there is always something new to learn. The Firkins Training Centre is a comfortable environment to learn in and has a wide arrange of appliances and mockups to learn on. The course is delivered in a relaxed convivial way which is in my view the best way to learn. I would highly recommend Firkins courses to other sweeps.

I saw this on a factory-made chimney in Latchi, Cyprus during our recent holiday. My initial thought was that someone was doing a type 1 smoke test, although there was no sweeps van outside the address. However, when the plastic bag was there to be seen each day of our holiday, I realise that it was something else entirely! Clearly the Greek owner had put the bag up there to prevent a draught? It did make us smile each time we drove past it!!

Our next stop on our recent road trip was in the historic town of Ross-On-Wye, a place neither Claire nor I had been before. The town was full of old historic buildings, so we spent a pleasant morning doing the online town trail. It was certainly a good way to get around the town and see all the sights, it was also good for spotting numerous chimneys as the photographs attest.

Ross-on-Wye is a market town and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, near the border with Wales. It had a population estimated at 10,978 in 2021. It lies in the south-east of the county, on the River Wye and on the northern edge of the Forest of Dean.

Ross-on-Wye promotes itself as “the birthplace of British tourism“. In 1745, the rector, Dr John Egerton, started taking friends on boat trips down the valley from his rectory at Ross. The Wye Valley‘s attraction was its river scenery, its precipitous landscapes, and its castles and abbeys, which were accessible to seekers of the “picturesque“. In 1782, William Gilpin’s book Observations on the River Wye was published, the first illustrated tour guide to be published in Britain. Once it had appeared, demand grew so much that by 1808 there were eight boats making regular excursions along the Wye, most of them hired from inns in Ross and Monmouth. By 1850, more than 20 visitors had published their own accounts of the Wye Tour, and the area was established as a tourist destination.

On the way down to Ross-On-Wye from Ludlow on our recent road trip, we decided to make a stop at the little Norman church of Kilpeck near Hereford. The church at Kilpeck is famous for its rich Norman decoration and unusual carvings, which look like they were carved only yesterday. What we didn’t know was that there was the remains of a Norman mott and bailey castle directly behind the church. We climbed up the mott to look at the small remaining section of the castle wall only to find that it had a fireplace and a section of chimney remaining in it. This chimney must be of some age as the castle and indeed the medieval town of Kilpeck fell had gone into decline prior to the black death (1348) and into disuse thereafter.

I have gleaned the following from the internet:

Kilpeck Church

The Church of St Mary and St David is a Church of England parish church at Kilpeck in the English county of Herefordshire, about 5 miles from the border with Monmouthshire, Wales. Pevsner describes Kilpeck as “one of the most perfect Norman churches in England”. Famous for its stone carvings, the church is a Grade I listed building.

The church was built around 1140, and almost certainly before 1143 when it was given to the Abbey of Gloucester. It may have replaced an earlier Saxon church at the same site, and the oval raised form of the churchyard is typical of even older Celtic foundations. Around the 6th and 7th centuries the Kilpeck (Welsh: Llanddewi Cil Peddeg) area was within the British kingdom of Ergyng, which maintained Christian traditions dating back to the late Roman period. The possibility of the site holding Roman and even megalithic remains has been raised, but is unproven.

The plan of the church, with a nave, chancel, and semicircular apse, is typical for the time of its construction, the Norman period. It was originally dedicated to a St David, probably a local Celtic holy man, and later acquired an additional dedication to Mary from the chapel at Kilpeck Castle after it had fallen into disrepair. At the time the current church was built, the area around Kilpeck, known as Archenfield, was relatively prosperous and strategically important, in the heart of the Welsh Marches. The economic decline of the area after the 14th century may have helped preserve features which would have been removed elsewhere. However, it is unclear why the carvings were not defaced by Puritans in the 17th century. The church was substantially repaired in 1864, 1898 and 1962, and its unique features were protected and maintained. Pevsner describes the Victorian restorations, firstly by Lewis Nockalls Cottingham and latterly by John Pollard Seddon as “competent [and] disciplined”.

The carvings in the local red sandstone are remarkable for their number and their fine state of preservation, particularly round the south door, the west window, and along a row of corbels which run right around the exterior of the church under the eaves. The carvings are all original and in their original positions. They have been attributed to a Herefordshire School of stonemasons, probably local but who may have been instructed by master masons recruited in France by Oliver de Merlimond. He was steward to the Lord of Wigmore, Hugh Mortimer, who went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain and, on his return, built a church with similar Romanesque carvings (now largely lost) at Shobdon, 30 miles north of Kilpeck. Hugh de Kilpeck, a relative of Earl Mortimer, employed the same builders at Kilpeck, and their work is also known at Leominster, Rowlestone and elsewhere. The writer Simon Jenkins notes the influences of churches found on the pilgrimage routes of Northern Europe.

The south door has double columns. The outer columns have carvings of a series of snakes, heads swallowing tails. In common with most of the other carvings, the meaning of these is unclear, but they may represent rebirth via the snake’s seasonal sloughing of its skin. The inner right column shows birds in foliage; at the top of the right columns is a green man. The inner left column has two warriors who, unusually, are in loose trousers. The outer sections of the arch above the doorway show creatures which can be interpreted as a manticore and a basilisk, and various other mythical and actual birds and beasts. The semicircular tympanum depicts a tree of life.

Kilpeck Castle

Kilpeck Castle, immediately west of the church, consists of a motte and bailey and various outworks. The motte is roughly circular with a diameter of 54 yards at the base and a maximum height of 27 ft. above the bottom of the ditch. It is surmounted by the remains of a polygonal shell-keep of masonry of which two large fragments remain towards the north and the southwest. The keep is probably of the 12th century and was polygonal both within and without; the external faces appear to have averaged about 14 ft. and the external diameter of the building was about 100 ft. In the North fragment of walling is a fireplace-recess with a segmental back of ashlar and a round flue; to the east are remains of a cross-wall, and there are two round drain-holes piercing the outer wall. The southwest fragment has remains of an ashlar-faced oven with the springing of an arch across the front; this oven was in the angle of a cross-wall and farther north is a third drain-hole. The motte is surrounded by a ditch which separates it from the kidney-shaped inner bailey on the east and from an outer bank on the west. The bailey has an outer ditch and remains of a rampart at the north and south ends; there are slight traces of a causeway leading to the motte. The bailey was entered from the southwest, where a gap in the rampart is flanked on one side by a small mound, perhaps covering the remains of part of a gatehouse. There are three outer enclosures on the northwest and south of the main earthwork, which are of irregular form and enclosed by ditches or scarps. The stream, to the west of the site was dammed at a point level with the north side of the west enclosure. To the northeast of the main earthwork is a roughly rectangular village-enclosure, about 300 yards by 200 yards; within it stand the church and other buildings, and there are scarps on the three outer sides and remains of a rampart on the northwest and southeast sides in addition. Within the enclosure are traces of foundations at right angles to the sides. Condition of earthworks, fairly good. The castle is thought to have been first built around 1090 as the administrative centre of Archenfield.

Here is an awesome set of chimneys from our visit to Ludlow. We stayed in a lovely pub called the ‘Charlton Arms’. On one side of the pub is the River Teme and the medieval bridge and on the other was this house with amazing chimneys.

Ludlow is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It is located 28 miles (45 km) south of Shrewsbury and 23 miles (37 km) north of Hereford, on the A49 road which bypasses the town. The town is near the confluence of the rivers Corve and Teme.

The oldest part is the medieval walled town, founded in the late 11th century after the Norman conquest of England. It is centred on a small hill which lies on the eastern bank of a bend of the River Teme. Situated on this hill are Ludlow Castle and the parish church, St Laurence’s, the largest in the county. From there the streets slope downward to the rivers Corve and Teme, to the north and south respectively. The town is in a sheltered spot beneath Mortimer Forest and the Clee Hills, which are clearly visible from the town.

Ludlow has nearly 500 listed buildings, including examples of medieval and Tudor-style half-timbered buildings. The town was described by Sir John Betjeman as “probably the loveliest town in England”.

Over the past week we have done a bit of a road trip, visiting relatives and seeing the sights. In sequence we went to Crosby in Liverpool, Cheadle Hume in Manchester, Chester, Ludlow, Ross-on-Wye and Church Enstone in the Cotswold’s. As well as sightseeing in the towns, we took in a number of other sights including Berrington Hall near Leominster in Herefordshire, Kilpeck Norman church and mott and bailey castle, the Rollright stones (a Megalithic complex including the ‘Kings Men stone circle, the King’s Stone Menhir and the Whispering Knights’ Neolithic chambered tomb), Deddington Castle (a massive mott and bailey castle), Somerton Norman church, and Wimpole Hall Cambridgeshire on the way home.

This all said, I saw these bad boys in Foregate Street and couldn’t resist taking a photograph. Looking at them I reckoned them to be around 15 Meters tall. I was wondering whether the premises had been purpose built as a shop or whether it had been a private house at one time.

I think that I only sweep three of these old Heta stoves across the area, so they are rather rare, this one is a Blue Enamel Heta Kosi 6304 Multi-Fuel Stove. The other two I sweep are different colours, one is green, and one is red. Heta stoves have obviously become a lot more popular in recent times as I see numerous examples of the Heta Inspire 40 and many, many more examples of the Heta Inspire 45. There are also numerous examples of the Heta Ambition around the area. I also see a number of the cylindrical Heta Scan-Line stoves. I know that both Cut Maple Stoves in Sturma and Goddards Stoves in Saffron Walden now fit Heta Stoves. Indeed, Nick Buckenham from Cut Maple Stoves has been to Heta in Denmark to learn all about the qualities of their stoves.  Having said all this, the customers I have who have the Heta Kosi 6304 stoves are more than happy with their performance. I like the more modern Heta stoves not just because of their sleek appearance, but because they are so easy to work on and dismantle.

HETA is a family-owned business, located in Lemvig near the west coast of Jutland in Denmark. This is where HETAs stoves are developed and manufactured from idea to finished product. Today, HETA is selling stoves to customers in 22 countries. HETA was founded in 1972 with Erik Bach at the steering wheel for the first many years. Today, Erik’s two sons, Carsten and Martin Bach, are heading the company.

For the first couple of years, the company produced hot water containers, refrigeration plants, tanks for fishing vessels and feeders for agriculture. In 1984, HETA started a collaboration with L. Lange & Co, a Danish iron foundry in Svendborg, founded by Lars Lange, a manufacturer of old cast iron stoves since 1850. After a few years later, HETA acquired L. Lange & Co’s activities.

In 1989, HETA developed the first of a long series of modern stoves, which laid the foundation for all the stoves in HETAs current range. Today, HETA also manufactures stove inserts, pellet stoves, aqua stoves, thermal mass stoves and outdoor stoves to quality-conscious consumers, not only in Denmark but worldwide.

Heta Stoves

Jupiterej 22

DK-7620 Lemvig

Denmark

https://heta.dk/en/

We recentlt took these amazing photographs of a Jackdaw hard at work in the farmyard of Vishwell Farm on our annual chimney sweeping visit to south Wales. They truly are amazing industrious creatures and can fill a chimney full of collected material in a short space of time in order to make a nest. In the photographs we can see a Jackdaw pulling fur from the back of a cow whilst its was feeding, with now ill effects to the cow. They will then use this material to line the top of a nest which they have obviously constructed in a chimney somewhere locally. We watch this happening for a little time and saw a pair of Jackdaws going to and from the farmyard collecting cow fur!

Nest building in UK chimneys would appear to be predominantly a feature of Jackdaw nesting habits and involves them posting large quantities of varying size sticks down chimneys until the lodge somewhere in the chimney (frequently right at the bottom if there are no significant turns in the chimney). In this case the particular farmhouse chimney was 10 and a half meters tall and was filled from top to bottom with nest material. This can clearly be seen in the photo’s. The problem with these birds is that once they have found a suitable chimney for nesting, they tend to return to that chimney to nest year after year.

Jackdaws are a member of the Crow Family – Interestingly, the Crow family, or to give them their Latin taxonomic name Corvidae family include; crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers. The crow family are singled out for their somewhat remarkable intelligence. Specifically, members of the family have demonstrated self-awareness in mirror tests (European magpies) and tool-making ability (e.g., crows and rooks), skills which until recently were thought to be possessed only by humans and a few other higher mammals. Their total brain-to-body mass ratio is equal to that of non-human great apes and cetaceans, and only slightly lower than that of humans.