THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
225
employed now. The bricks were specially made by Messrs. Brown and
Son, of Brentwood, to resemble old Tudor bricks, in size, colour, and
texture. The brick chimney-shafts had been reproduced from "Pryors,"
an Elizabethan house a few hundred yards distant, in which Mr. Christy
lived formerly. The front of the house was of timber and brick-nogging-
work—that is to say, brickwork between upright timber "studs," the
bricks being set in ornamental patterns, often called "herringbone-work,"
in the manner seen in the older portions of "Moyns," at Steeple Bump-
stead, in various other Essex houses of the period, and in some of the
very fine Tudor barns in the Roothings. The carved oak staircase is a
close reproduction of that at "Pryors." In the oak panelling of the
hall, there is even a concealed "priest's hiding hole." The plaster-work
design in the ceiling of the dining room is copied from an Elizabethan or
Jacobean ceiling formerly in a cottage, now destroyed, at Colchester. In
short, an attempt has been made to keep the whole of the house, and
everything in it, including the furniture, as true as possible to the style
of the period.
Afterwards the party adjourned to the Blue House (the residence of
Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Christy), immediately adjacent, to inspect Mr. Miller
Christy's Private Museum of Ancient Domestic Appliances (often spoken
of as "Bygones"), which is housed in a barn there.
The Museum consists chiefly of an extensive collection of the appliances
which were used formerly in connection with the old-fashioned "flat"
or "open" hearth, burning wood logs on the floor of the hearth. This
was in use practically everywhere until eighty or one hundred years ago,
when the construction of railways allowed of the transport and general
use of coal. Before that time, what we now call coal was used only in
the vicinity of sea-ports, to which it could be transported cheaply by water,
hence its old name of "sea-coal," ordinary firewood being then known as
"coals." Before the days of railroads, what we now call coal was prac-
tically never used inland, unless in very grand houses.
Among those appliances pertaining specially to the burning of the
fire itself, were the Andirons (vulgarly called "fire-dogs"), which held up
the ends of the burning logs and aided combustion by allowing the access
of air. Next, there was the lire-back, a heavy cast-iron plate, on the
face of which was always an ornamental design, often heraldic. This was
stood against the brickwork or masonry at the back of the hearth to pro-
tect it from the action of the flames. Then, too, there were the fire-tongs
and the fire-fork, which were used for lifting the logs when making up the
fire. The poker had no use in connection with this form of hearth. The
poker is, primarily, a lever, and a lever requires a fulcrum, to be of use ;
but the old kind of flat hearth possessed no fixed point which could serve
as a fulcrum. The poker, though now the most familiar of all "fire-irons,"
is, in fact, a very modern appliance, having practically come into use
with the modern coal-burning "fire-grate," the iron bars of which afford
the necessary fulcrum. Then, there were the fire-shovel (which served
then, as now, for gathering up the ashes) and the bellows. These latter
were used formerly much more than now, a coal fire being less easily
"blown up" by their aid than the older fire of logs. The purpose of the
bellows was served, sometimes, by a blow-tube.