The age-herald., 1898-10-19
EnqIish Fashions in Fire Places.

The following description from decra- ter gives the vogue at present in ingle hooks and grates:
 Houses that are being built or are In pro- cess of redecoration are all having their chimney pieces refitted, and the demand of the household is for fireplace where wood or coal not electric embers or gas logs can be made to burn.
 A half dozen years ago, when rich Ameri- cans were enthusiastic over French fash ions, the demand was almost eXclusNely for grates and fireplaces that were copied from French palaces and chateauX; now, however, a strong reaction has set in in favor of the English mode, and you cannot achieve anything more admirable in house decoration than to have your chimney piece copied from Hampton court, Haddon hall or Dalkeith castle.
 The chimney piece and fittings in the H. brary of Boltmore, George Vanderbilts North Carolina home, are patterned, Tn many respects, after the one in the library of an old Scotch castle, and the dogs that uphold the giant logs in this stately room stand nearly five feet high. They were de- signed and cast in bronze in this country, but not every American can afford either the trouble or the expense of burning sea- soned logs, and in all the newly doneover city houses the grate is still the thing. Around the hub, dog, or basket grate IS then built a mantel, or an ingle nook, or
 
 mouth of giant Dutch stove..
 The ingle nook settle was originally an English invention, but the present taste is for deal of Flemish decoration and the interior architect confines this comfortable species of fireside to halls or libraries. Carried out, according to the best authority, 1t must be done in mahogany and consist of a low-benched trestle seat against paneled dado, and above that small paned windows, each section of which should have one square of colored glass.
 If the ingle nook is used as a sort Of loungng and smoking corner for the head of the house, the colored central glasses show fanciful calumets, magnificent meer- chaums and briarwoods crossed The tres tie seat is upholstered in tapestry.
 Then, as to the hearth itself, green Dutch tiles form the actual surground while large old-style serving basket of black iron holds the coals over step or rich req Welsh birches Now, this is said to be description of the ingle nook as It is seen today in old Lancanshire houses, whence they are copied eX- actly, even to the wooden jack in the cor ner, used a hundred years ago for put ting off the masters Jack boots, when ne come home after day with the hounds.
 Quite as fashionable mantelpiece as the ingle nook. copied from a Jacobian house, is New England chimney corner, copied from any of the old seventeenth century frame houses abOut PlyfnOutH I>eWpoit oi Boston. They have been introduced tnis year in many houses where the square hall is used as a living room and where tea Is served in the afternoon. The whole face Of the chimney and the lining thereof is done with red brick carefully antiqued to get the proper age color. The bricks are burnt, then buried and finally, when the fire place is built, wood file is used to wear away their edges in stimulation of the gnawng tooth of time and usage Quite as often the whole fire place is done in roughly set field stones and the wooden mantel Is carved with the flat rosettes and neat cor rugations so dear to the colonial heart.
 Those who can afford and prefer to have wood in their New England fire places use the small brass fire dogs and treasure their ashes but in city houses wrought iron dog grates are preferred for holding palpi- tating bed of Welsh coal. and cups and crumfets are kept hot in the oven that opens in one side of the bricked walls.
 After the long reign of Louis Quatory Ounine and siege periods of freplaces for drawing rooms, the fashion is now for the beautiful and elaborate Adam grates and lenders of exqusitely engraved and pierced brass One and all these are made with outstanding fire dog pedestals in front, while the face of the grate itself are of steel polished like cambric needle, so elaborate is the work on some of these Adam grates with dogs that their cost mounts up into the thousands. Such grates have frames of carved Algerian onyx, which is much more jewel-like in beauty than the Mexican onyx and far rarer. Fleur de Peecher marble, which comes from France, and is most exquisitely inlad, is another material used in exquisitely dec- orated drawing rooms and boudoirs. Fleur de Peecher is a rose-tinted marble decorat- ed with other marble and with inlay of metals; but the top-notch of extravaganza