How would this doorway have originally looked?

[DaveG]

Date the house was built I’m told is around 1870.
The door had been boarded over and wallpapered and when I pulled all that off, there’s this cladding stuff pictured. Problem is it goes up through the lime plaster ceiling which I disturb when trying to remove but I can’t imagine that’s what would have been there in 1870.
The profile of the area above the door I can imagine maybe originally having stained glass. What do you think?
I could just plasterboard over it but I’d rather like to return it to how it would have looked originally if possible.



The long section just to the right of the door frame is a thin chipboard kind of stuff concealing radiator pipes but immediately to the left of it you can see a solid wood frame with a sort of rolled edge. I feel some character has been lost here

 

[DaveG]

I was thinking perhaps it may have originally looked more like this:

 

[DaveG]

Here’s another one of my doorways to provide a clue but again I think this has been messed with and the arch wouldn’t have originally been there:

 

[Cubist]

Looks like a well to do property so I'm guessing that rather than another fanlight its a housing and mount for a series of bells.

 

[DaveG]

It’s a bit of a funny one. It was formerly 2 semidetached houses and was at some point knocked through into one. As individual properties I think they must have been quite modest 2 up and 2 down. I get the impression it’s been poked and prodded about a lot the past 150 years. I’m anticipating lots of hidden history. For example the only fireplace on show is currently in one front room. On the opposite side of the house there’s a boarded over fireplace in the back room. Surely if the houses were symmetrical this says I should have a fireplace in each downstairs room but the walls in the other rooms where I’d expect a fireplace are solid. I’m thinking possibly bricked up? Also none of the bedrooms currently have fireplaces but again I’m thinking maybe boarded over as the end walls are plasterboarded.
I won’t know for sure until I take all of the tanking and gypsum off the walls downstairs but hoping for some good finds in time!

 

[Stevers]

This is what we found whilst running plumbing and Passivent ducting up an internal stud wall. These sorts of things were usually put in for borrowed light, but why you would ever need a conventional height window between a bathroom and landing is a mystery - unless of course at 5'x6' it was initially a box room rather than a very early bathroom (1879). This end of the landing is 20' from the landing window so quite gloomy. It can be very hard to interpret changes that were made early in the evolution of a house, as I think is so in your case.

 

[Cubist]

My idea sounds less likely now, so it probably was a fanlight. One other thought comes to mind though that may save the bells insofar that sometimes a couple of adjacent properties would be converted for use by a business or a doctors surgery. Local council records would help there.

Regarding the fireplaces. You seen that movie 'Don't Look Up'? Ignore it and take a look at the chimneys - the number of pots would indicate the number of flues in the stack.

 

[DaveG]

My idea sounds less likely now, so it probably was a fanlight. One other thought comes to mind though that may save the bells insofar that sometimes a couple of adjacent properties would be converted for use by a business or a doctors surgery. Local council records would help there.

Regarding the fireplaces. You seen that movie 'Don't Look Up'? Ignore it and take a look at the chimneys - the number of pots would indicate the number of flues in the stack.

They’ve been messed with (pots removed and chimneys capped) too!



It looks a wide stack though so two feeds going up seems reasonable to me

 

[Cubist]

At least two I would agree. But at nearly 6 feet wide it could house up to four.

 

[Stevers]

Definitely room for four flues.

 

[DaveG]

A bit dumb here having never owned an old house but the 4 would be for 2 downstairs and 2 up? That’s as I would expect really. I heard the victorians generally put a fireplace in every room.
Could make for some nice features upstairs in time

 

[Stevers]

With a stone house the thickness of the walls may mean that there is little or no chimney breast visible - ours are only about 8" deep upstairs.

Some years ago we were working on one of our chimneys to restore it to it's full height and were fitting the five chimney pots needed each end, when a passer by wanted to now "why so many pots" so I adviced him of the ten fireplaces inside, (two of which were in the basement for a range and a copper).

 

[Cubist]

A bit dumb here having never owned an old house but the 4 would be for 2 downstairs and 2 up? That’s as I would expect really. I heard the victorians generally put a fireplace in every room.
Could make for some nice features upstairs in time

Most likely yes. Living room and master bedroom in each probably or kitchen and living room in some. Yes also to the Victorians but mostly in fairly affluent homes.

 

[DaveG]

My suspicions were correct. The walls feel solid because they’ve been blocked up.
I won’t be reinstating all of the fireplaces but wanted to do this one as it gives me an exit point for my subfloor vents when they get reinstated.

Judging by where the lime plaster finished and the shallow depth my guess is it was never originally open and had one of those cast iron fireplaces.
I’ll be honest though, cleaned up I quite like the rustic look if I’ve no need to make this a working fireplace again. Would it be sacrilege do you think to keep those bricks above exposed and have it as a feature or do you think I should get the iron fireplace back in there?