A trip out to Suffolk for this week’s blog! This job involved sweeping a rare retro stove, a Franklin Majestic 98-1800 Wood-Burning Stove. I had not come across one of these stoves before and it proved easy enough to sweep, but very dirty as it had not been swept for some time. This example was in an address in Lidgate, close to Bury St Edmonds. It was an unusual old, thatched timber framed property. However, what made it unusual was that the thatch had been covered by a corrugated tin roof, which had been painted black. The builder who was renovating the property told me an interesting story as to how and why such thatched buildings came to be covered with corrugated tin roofs. He told me that during the war many thatched properties had their rooves covered with corrugated tin to protect them from German 5^th columnists and spies, who might set fire to their rooves, which might aid as a guide to German bombers. This said he could not swear to the veracity of the story!

I did try and research the stove on the internet, but could find very little information about Franklin Majestic Stove, other than they were made in America. But what I did find was information about the development of Franklin stoves: The Franklin stove is a metal-lined fireplace named after Benjamin Franklin, who invented it in 1742. It had a hollow baffle near the rear (to transfer more heat from the fire to a room’s air) and relied on an “inverted siphon” to draw the fire’s hot fumes around the baffle. It was intended to produce more heat and less smoke than an ordinary open fireplace, but it achieved few sales until it was improved by David Rittenhouse. It is also known as a “circulating stove” or the “Pennsylvania fireplace”. The two distinguishing features of Franklin’s stove were a hollow baffle (a metal panel that directed the flow of the fire’s fumes) and a flue that acted as an upside-down siphon.

The stove was about 30 inches (76 cm) tall, with a box shape. The front was open, except for a decorative panel in the upper part of the box. The back of the box was to be placed a few inches away from the flue (chimney). On the bottom panel there were several holes to allow the smoke to escape; these were connected to the chimney. The panels were bolted together with iron screws through pre-cast ears. Inside there was a small, thin rectangular prism that would force the smoke into the holes. The plates were all made from iron.

Franklin’s stove sold poorly. The problem lay with the inverted siphon: the smoke had to pass through a cold flue (which was set in the floor) before the smoke could enter the chimney; consequently, the smoke cooled too much, and the stove did not have a good draft. The inverted siphon would operate properly only if the fire burned constantly, so that the temperature in the flue was high enough to produce a draft.

A later version, designed by David Rittenhouse, solved many of the problems Franklin’s original stove had, and became popular. Franklin’s fame outweighed Rittenhouse’s, though, so history remembers the Franklin Stove rather than the Rittenhouse Stove. The smaller Latrobe stove, often referred to as a Baltimore Heater, was patented in 1846 and became popular.

Here we are again, sweeping for the Bishop of Chelmsford on a Sunday in August, the only day of the week that we have time to do these jobs. On this occasion we were doing the Rectory at Great Oakley, which just outside of Harwich. The parish church at Great Oakley is dedicated to all Saints and dates back to the Norman period.

The church stands to the west of the village in the grounds of a local estate. The walls are of flint and septariarubble, with dressings of limestone; the roofs are tiled. The Nave is of the 12th century but has been lengthened at some uncertain period. Early in the 14th century the Chancel was rebuilt and probably late in the 15th century a W. tower was added. The West Tower was rebuilt in the 18th century and the church has been restored in modern times when the walls generally were refaced; the South Porch is an 18th-century addition.

The two originally had a peel of five bells, but the original tower began to become unsafe in the 18^th century, due to the weight of the bells and the disintegrating fabric which had suffered from the effects of the sea air. The tower was partially demolished and replaced with a wooden bellcote. The work was paid for by selling four of the bells, retaining one bell which was placed in the repaired tower and accounting for the tower’s unusual appearance today. There are some nice features in the church including a Norman age font and an elaborately carved doorway that had been defaced by Cromwell’s troops who were billeted in the church during the Civil War. There is a war grave in the churchyard to a sailor C. W. Offord who died during the 1^st World War.

Yes, this week’s serving for the blog is yet another Morso stove! Yes there are lots of them! As I have said before, is it just me, or do Morso make more different models of stove than any other stove company? They seem to be continually updating their range of stoves with new models, whilst discontinuing older models. This week’s blog focuses on one of Morso’s cylindrical contemporary stoves – This example is the Morso 7940 Wood-Burning Stove, I swept this one recently in an address in Wendons Ambo. This Morso stove is not unlike many of their stove range and also Jotul stoves in that they take a certain amount of dismantling before you are able to sweep the chimney. This said the complex arrangement of baffles are there to make the stove more efficient by retaining the hot combustion gases in the stove much longer making them more efficient.

 Morso are a Danish stove company who have been making metal consumer goods since 1953. It was Neils Christensen who founded the Morson Foundry making all sorts of products including metal stable windows, tools, pots and pans and even grave crosses. Around the turn of the century Morso began to start making tiled stoves and room heaters for schools, churches, railways, government ministries and even to the Danish Royal Family. Indeed, so successful where they, that in 1915 they became the official purveyor of stoves to the Danish Royal Family. It was in the 1950 when tiled stoves became obsolete that Morso began producing Wood-burning Stoves.

Morso Stoves UK

Unit 14B, Davy Court, Castle Mount Way, Rugby, Warwickshire CV23 0UZ

01788554410

https://morsoe.com/

Constantly looking at chimneys, I quite often get to see thatched animals on thatched roofs whilst I am working. This is not the case on this occasion, I noticed these thatched animals whilst I was on holiday for a week in February at Walberswick on the Suffolk coast. So, here is a real country scene for this week’s thatched animal blog, a vixen walking along the ridgeline of a thatched cottage, followed by her cubs. As mentioned previously, the vast majority of thatched animals are linked to countryside scenes or pursuits like hunting. This is I suppose the way we would expect things to be, as most thatched cottages are in the countryside. Country people enjoying country scenes atop their thatched cottages, what could be more picturesque and apposite!

Here is the rather space age looking Jotul F105R Multi-Fuel Stove, I recently sept this example at an address in Milton. This address was literally a few doors away from another address I sweep at in Milton, so next year I have arranged to do them both on the same day, as Milton is a bit of a stretch for me from Saffron Walden. I usually do the other Milton address first thing in the morning, so travelling there in my own time as it where, and then working my way back to Saffron Walden via Cambridge and the villages south of there.

The Jotul F105 is certainly an unusual looking stove, like something from a Sci-Fi novel? A bit like a strange alien spaceship in my mind, but certainly ultra-contemporary., This example is in an old cottage, but the juxtaposition of old and very contemporary works very well and does not look out of place. The Jotul F105 is however a very tricky stove to work on and has a difficult top baffle to remove, which has minimal clearances within the stove – There is a real knack to it, and it has to be done in a very particular way or it just won’t be removed from the stove. Although it is not a very common stove I do work on a number of examples, most of which have been installed by Cut Maple Stoves from New England, so I’m used to dismantling them.

Jotul are a Norweigan company and have been making stoves and fireplaces for over 160 years. Jotul are proud of their global status, selling their products in 43 different countries spread over six continents – Truly a global brand!

Jøtul was founded by Oluf Onsum as Kværner Jernstøberi (Kværner Foundry) in the outskirts of Christiania (now Oslo) in 1853. While stoves initially were the main products, the company had diversified by the beginning of the 20th century, when it produced turbines and lumber equipment.

As the heating appliance manufacture decreased in importance, the production was spun off in 1916 and sold to Herman Anker, one of Kværner’s managers. He founded Jøtul AS in 1920 as a sales organization for its products. The sales stagnated during the depression in the 1920s, and 36-year-old Herman Anker died in 1927, leaving it to his successor, 34-year-old Johannes Gahr to modernize and eventually salvage the company. By 1935, the turnaround had succeeded, and the firm acquired its modern name.

By the 1960s, stoves using liquid fuels, especially kerosene had supplanted wood-burning appliances, a trend that was only reversed in the 1970s, partly due to the 1973 oil crisis. Jøtul used this opportunity to gain a strong international foothold and drastically increased its exports to continental Europe and North America.

The Gahr family sold the business to Norcem in 1977, and a period of international expansion began, as Jøtul acquired a number of foundries and importers abroad. This period lasted for approximately ten years, but came to an end during the recession in the late 1980s, when Jøtul once again focussed on the domestic market. However, it has resumed its international diversification in the 21st century, and today its products are sold worldwide.

In March 2018, Jøtul was acquired by the global private equity firm OpenGate Capital. Along with management, OpenGate has crafted a plan to boost performance and eliminate inefficiencies in Jøtul’s operations. In addition, OpenGate Capital is actively searching for add-on targets to further drive Jøtul’s growth. In November 2018, OpenGate and Jøtul completed the add-on acquisition of AICO, an Italian and French based pellet-burning stove leader.

https://www.jotul.co.uk/

Here is something unusual for this week’s blog, a freestanding Stovax Riva, you don’t often see one of these! Although I do see lots and lots of the cassette version of the Stovax Riva I don’t think that I have ever seen a freestanding version, anywhere I sweep or in a showroom. This example is the Stovax Riva 66, which I recently swept at an address in Birchanger. It is a rather attractive contemporary stove, with very clean, straight lines and does not look out of place with the very contemporary home within which it is situated. So, I do like this stove and imagine that it is rather attractive when alight, however I can’t help thinking that when it is not working, it looks rather like a big fish tank? The customer reports that it is a very efficient stove and they do obtain very good fuel economy from it. Additionally, they told me that it does keep the room nice and toasty warm even on the coldest of winter days!

The Stovax Heating Group has been dedicated to the design and manufacture of exceptional stoves, fires and fireplaces for 38 years. Today, we are one of the UK’s leading stove and fireplace manufacturers, exporting to over 25 countries worldwide.

Across our wood burning, multi-fuel, gas and electric products, we strive to create the future of fire. Each of our heating products is the result of decades of expert craftsmanship and class-leading innovation – representing the pinnacle of British engineering.

The Stovax Heating Group is proud to be part of the NIBE Stoves group, a market-leading provider of domestic heating products.

Based in Exeter, England, Stovax Ltd was established in 1981 to design, manufacture and distribute wood burning stoves and fireside accessories. By 1988, the sister company Gazco Ltd was formed to develop and produce gas and electric versions of Stovax stoves.

Today, Stovax and Gazco continue to work very closely together. Each company has constantly developed its product range such that the combined businesses have grown to become one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of stoves, fireplaces and fires, with exports to countries worldwide.

In 2006, Stovax Ltd purchased Yeoman, a long established manufacturer of wood burning stoves that specialised in more rustic, rural styling. The company continues to produce a distinctive and separate range of wood burning, multi-fuel, gas and electric stoves and fires under the Yeoman brand.

Stovax is also the UK and Republic of Ireland distributor for a number of additional fireplaces and stove brands including Dovre, Lotus, Nordpeis & Varde. You can find your nearest retailer in the UK and the Republic of Ireland by using the Find a Retailer tool on this website. For information on distributors in other countries, please contact exportsales@stovax.com.

https://www.stovax.com/information/contact/

Is it just me, or do Morso make more different models of stove than any other stove company? They seem to be continually updating their range of stoves with new models, whilst discontinuing older models. This example is a Morso 1510 Multi-Fuel Stove that I recently swept in an address in Shepreth. Like all Morso stoves, this one the customer tells me works very efficiently and requires little in day-to-day maintenance. The customer reports that it is a very efficient stove and they do obtain very good fuel economy from it. Additionally, they told me that it does keep the room nice and toasty warm even on the coldest of winter days! Indeed, the customer had this stove installed 22 years ago and the stove itself does not appear to have aged at all, and still looks relatively new!

Morso are a Danish stove company who have been making metal consumer goods since 1953. It was Neils Christensen who founded the Morson Foundry making all sorts of products including metal stable windows, tools, pots and pans and even grave crosses. Around the turn of the century Morso began to start making tiled stoves and room heaters for schools, churches, railways, government ministries and even to the Danish Royal Family. Indeed, so successful where they, that in 1915 they became the official purveyor of stoves to the Danish Royal Family. It was in the 1950 when tiled stoves became obsolete that Morso began producing Wood-burning Stoves.

Morso Stoves UK

Unit 14B, Davy Court, Castle Mount Way, Rugby, Warwickshire CV23 0UZ

01788554410

https://morsoe.com/

Here is something unusual for this week’s blog, a freestanding Stovax Riva, you don’t often see one of these! Although I do see lots and lots of the cassette version of the Stovax Riva I don’t think that I have ever seen a freestanding version, anywhere I sweep or in a showroom. This example is the Stovax Riva 66, which I recently swept at an address in Birchanger. It is a rather attractive contemporary stove, with very clean, straight lines and does not look out of place with the very contemporary home within which it is situated. So, I do like this stove and imagine that it is rather attractive when alight, however I can’t help thinking that when it is not working, it looks rather like a big fish tank? The customer reports that it is a very efficient stove and they do obtain very good fuel economy from it. Additionally, they told me that it does keep the room nice and toasty warm even on the coldest of winter days!

The Stovax Heating Group has been dedicated to the design and manufacture of exceptional stoves, fires and fireplaces for 38 years. Today, we are one of the UK’s leading stove and fireplace manufacturers, exporting to over 25 countries worldwide.

Across our wood burning, multi-fuel, gas and electric products, we strive to create the future of fire. Each of our heating products is the result of decades of expert craftsmanship and class-leading innovation – representing the pinnacle of British engineering.

The Stovax Heating Group is proud to be part of the NIBE Stoves group, a market-leading provider of domestic heating products.

Based in Exeter, England, Stovax Ltd was established in 1981 to design, manufacture and distribute wood burning stoves and fireside accessories. By 1988, the sister company Gazco Ltd was formed to develop and produce gas and electric versions of Stovax stoves.

Today, Stovax and Gazco continue to work very closely together. Each company has constantly developed its product range such that the combined businesses have grown to become one of Europe’s leading manufacturers of stoves, fireplaces and fires, with exports to countries worldwide.

In 2006, Stovax Ltd purchased Yeoman, a long established manufacturer of wood burning stoves that specialised in more rustic, rural styling. The company continues to produce a distinctive and separate range of wood burning, multi-fuel, gas and electric stoves and fires under the Yeoman brand.

Stovax is also the UK and Republic of Ireland distributor for a number of additional fireplaces and stove brands including Dovre, Lotus, Nordpeis & Varde. You can find your nearest retailer in the UK and the Republic of Ireland by using the Find a Retailer tool on this website. For information on distributors in other countries, please contact exportsales@stovax.com.

https://www.stovax.com/information/contact/

 Here is something of a survivor from days gone by, Coalbrookdale stoves and worthy of my weekly blog. I see plenty of retro Coalbrookdale stoves around the area, but the vast majority of them are the Little Wenlock model or less so the Severn model. So, it was nice to see this Coalbrookdale Darby Multi-Fuel Stove at an address in Little Bardfield the other day. The house also boasted a more modern stove, but only slightly, a Vermont Defiant Wood-Burning stove. Both of these stoves would quite happily fit into my category of monster stoves. Both have huge capacious fire-boxes and throw out a great deal of heat when the are in operation. Fortunately for the customer, both these stoves are situated in extremely large rooms, so are well placed to heat the rooms efficiently, but not to overheat them.

Coalbrookdale stoves are now made by the Aga Rangemaster company, in the form of an updated range of stoves, one of which is still called the ‘little Wenlock’. The Aga group is a midlands company based in Leamington Spa and has been manufacturing its stoves in a factory in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, since 1930. The first Aga oven was designed by Swedish Nobel Prize-winning physicist Gustaf Dalen in 1922 and production started in the West Midlands seven years later.

Coalbrookdale is a famous Foundry in England that has been credited with some major “firsts” in the field of Iron Casting. The foundry was the site of the first coke-fired iron smelting furnace in the world, built by Abraham Darby in 1708 out of an existing charcoal furnace. The first blast day for the new furnace was 10 January 1709, and from the start, Darby produced cheap iron pots using a new, dry-sand mold technique, with complete success. They casted iron rails for the first trains as well as the parts for the world’s first cast iron bridge, which can still be seen today spanning the River Severn at Iron Bridge.

What I did find of interest whilst conducting my internet searches looking at Coalbrookdale stoves, was that the Coalbrookdale Company has an extremely long and interesting history that goes right back to the birth of the Industrial Revolution and far beyond. In the 12^th Century the area of Coalbrookdale which is in Shropshire fell within the manor of Madeley, which belonged to Much Wenlock Priory. The monks here operated a bloomery (iron foundary) called “Caldebroke Smithy”. In 1536 bloomery recorded as still being in operation, however in 1540 during the dissolution of the Monistaries Much Wenlock Priory was closed by King Henry VIII, but the bloomery continued working. Then in 1544 the “Smethe Place” and “Calbroke Smethe” were leased to a Hugh Morrall. This is believed to refer to the Lower Forge (SJ667038) and Upper Forge (SJ669042). Before in 1545 the abbey’s lands being eventually bought by the king’s Italian physician, Agostino Agostini but he sold them in the same year (presumably at a profit) to a local man called Thomas Lawley. Then in 1572 the manor was acquired by John Brooke, who constructed a number of coal mines on his land and continued the operation of the bloomery.

In 1615 Brooke’s son, Sir Basil Brooke, bought the patent for making steel by the cementation process and built a blast furnace at Coalbrookdale. Interestingly, Brooke was arrested in 1644 by Parliament after being involved in a plot to prevent the Scottish army taking part in the English Civil War. The following year Brooke’s estate was sequestrated by Parliament, but the works continued in use. Then in 1651 the manor was leased to Francis Wolfe, the clerk of the ironworks, by Brooke’s heirs.  Brooke had died in 1646 so presumably Parliament had returned the manor to his family. In 1658 – a new blast furnace and forges were built. In 1688 the ironworks were leased by a Shadrach Fox, who in 1696 was supplying round cannon shot and grenado shells to the Board of Ordnance during the Nine Years War. Unfortunately, in 1703 the furnace blew up but the forges remained in use.

In 1709 Abraham Darby I acquired the lease and created the Coalbrookdale Company, an iron foundry which used coke as fuel to make pots and pans. The company had a very long history and is famous for making the first iron bridge which still stands to this day. In 1945 the company started manufacturing wood-burning stoves and the Rayburn cooker. In 1969 the company was absorbed into Allied Ironfounders Ltd.

Here is a bit of a novelty to us, as a result of a request for a favour from one of our regular customers, we went to sweep a stove chimney at their close friends in the village of Elsworth, Cambridgeshire. Beautiful though it is, Elsworth has a signal claim to fame. In the 1940’s and 1950’s the villages rector, the Rev Wilbert Vere Awdry wrote the Thomas the Tank Engine stories from the vicarage. As can be seen in the photo there is a blue plaque to him on the wall of the vicarage. The reverend Awdry was an all-round railway enthusiast and had a large model railway set up in the basement of the vicarage. Some of the locals we spoke with told us that the tables that the model railway sat on were still in the basement. The reverend Awdry grew up in a house called Journeys End in Box in Wiltshire. “Journey’s End” was only 200 yards (180 m) from the western end of Box Tunnel, where the Great Western Railway main line climbs at a gradient of 1 in 100 for 2 miles (3.2 km). A banking engine was kept there to assist freight trains up the hill.^[6] These trains usually ran at night, and the young Awdry could hear them from his bed, listening to the coded whistle signals between the train engine and the banker as well as the sharp bark from the locomotive exhausts as they fought their way up the incline.^[6] Awdry said, “There was no doubt in my mind that steam engines all had definite personalities. I would hear them snorting up the grade and little imagination was needed to hear in the puffings and pantings of the two engines the conversation they were having with one another.” Here was the inspiration for the story of Edward helping Gordon‘s train up the hill, a story that Wilbert first told his son Christopher some 25 years later, and which appeared in the first of the Railway Series books.

The rectory and the church are in the lane directly opposite the thatched cottage where we were sweeping. As can be seen from the photos the appliance being swept is a Vermont Intrepid wood-burning stove.