Hearth Design

Domestic Hearths in Early Medieval Ireland

Context

In Iron Age Ireland (and earlier), the typical house was round, made of wattle (frequently without daub), with a domed, thatched roof and a rectangular door (1). An entire nuclear family would dwell together inside this one house. Some houses contained internal wattle partitions to segregate a private area within this round structure, with multiple hearths inside, one in the common area and another in the partitioned, private area.

By the Early Medieval Period, double houses were common. These were 'figure-of-eight' style houses, with two round dwellings built side-by-side so that the walls could meet and a doorway connect the two. Typically, these were multiphase structures: an older roundhouse received an addition, so that the new roundhouse became the new primary dwelling, and the old roundhouse, now at the back, became a storage and craft room. When this happened, the old hearth was usually filled in, and a new hearth installed in the new, front roundhouse.

Deer Park Farms: a double roundhouse (1)

A hearth inside a domestic structure provides heat and light (especially in winter). Most of the cooking for the family would occur in this central hearth. This made it a primary feature for the dwelling, and life inside the house revolved around this central anchor.

Position of the Hearth

In most dwellings, the hearth was installed during the initial stages of construction. This may have played a dual purpose, allowing the workers to conveniently char the ends of the posts (see Charring Posts) before sinking them into the ground, while also centering the circular construction. Certainly it helped to have the stones of the hearth in place when filling in the gravel of the floor. Digging through gravel is difficult and frustrating, and would waste the gravel that ended up mixed in with dirt when digging the hearth out, so having the hearth dug prior to placing the gravel saved time and effort. Placing the large stones into this pre-dug hearth before laying the gravel made sure that the gravel did not tumble into the hearth (where it was not needed).

The hearth usually sat at or near the very center of the round structure. This helped prevent fire (a serious danger, attested by the archaeological record) by keeping the burning coals as far as possible away from the wooden walls. It also placed the smoke under the highest point in the structure, which may not have had a smoke-hole, with the consequence that roundhouses would have been quite smoky. Letting the smoke rise as high as possible would have helped keep the air inside cleaner for breathing, as well as ensuring that most sparks and floating cinders would cool before encountering the flammable roof.

The beds and storage areas took up the space along the walls, making use of the existing infrastructure of the house as the back side of beds and storage bins. To access these beds and stored goods, a circular walkway was needed. Thus the cooking area ended up in the middle, surrounded by this path, further adding a safety measure to the open fire by having this cleared space between the flame and any bedding or baskets that might be flammable.

In the case of double-houses, having the hearth in the front house also saved labor in carrying in fuel and carrying out ash. The back room, by not having a hearth, had twice as much usable space for storage or activities because there was no fire-hazard and requisite clear-zone around it. Thus, any structure that had no hearth is frequently assumed to be associated with storage or crafting (even if it is a free-standing structure), while any roundhouse with a hearth inside is likely to be an active dwelling.

Hearth Features

The central hearth could be quite large, even in relatively small dwellings. For example, in the Raised Rath Period of Deer Park Farms, Structure Alpha (a 6 meter, or 19.8 foot diameter roundhouse, a medium-small dwelling) had a hearth that measured 1 meter by 1.1 meters (3.2 by 3.6 feet). A small hearth, like that in Structure Pi of the Rath Period, could measure 40 cm (1.3 feet) square. These measurements reflect the open, interior rectangle of the hearth space, which was usually about 20-40cm (7-15 inches) deep. Most of these pit hearths had stones laid as kerbs to keep the dirt walls of the pit from slumping inward. In many cases, the hearth stones along the sides were long, single stones, while smaller, rounder stones anchored the corners. Other hearths had more haphazard arrangements of stones keeping the pit rectangular; these were not as neat but served the purpose. A few hearths were also stone-paved on the bottoms.

Deer Park Farms: a stone-kerbed hearth (1)

Not every hearth had a pit dug to make it safer, but it is clear from the amount of work put into digging, stone-lining and sometimes paving these pits that having the fire sunken into the floor was preferred when possible. Inside a pit, hot coals cannot roll away, logs cannot fall out of the fire area, and it is easier to keep the danger zone from spreading.

Most hearths had a variety of stake-holes around them. Most of the stakes around a given hearth could have been present simultaneously, or else replaced old stakes as they broke, or they could represent different cooking preferences of different occupants in different years. Whichever is the case, the sheer number and scattering of the posts clearly reflect a consistent use of multiple stakes around the hearth. Presumably at least two stakes, across the rectangular hearth from one another, would have held some form of spit or beam for hanging pots and meat. Other stakes may have sported pegs and metal hooks (for hanging utensils off the ground) and metal candle or rush-light holders.

Deer Park Farms: iron candlesticks and rush-light holders (1)

Many hearths also had shallow depressions, usually round or semi-round, located somewhere near the stone kerbs but outside of the pits themselves. These shallow pits, ill-defined and sometimes overlapping (or punctured by later stake-holes), typically contain charcoal remains (similar to the hearths) and may have served some cooking purpose. For instance, a cook could have shoveled out a few hot coals from the main fire in the pit, and placed them in these shallow, round depressions. This would allow controlled temperatures for cooking various dishes separately from the main heat of the fire (like having multiple burners on a modern stove).

Fuel and Cleanup

The Irish burned primarily coppice-grown oak, holly, ash, hazel, and willow (see Coppicing), in addition to peat turves. Whether the occupants of Deer Park Farms specifically were burning wood on-site or burning charcoal made in pits on-site or brought in from pits near the coppice groves is hard to determine. However, pit-kilns for charcoal are common finds in Ireland from the Iron Age onward, and this would have been a legitimate fuel for the domestic hearths in these roundhouses, no less than round coppiced firewood and turves of peat. Charcoal would have had the additional benefit of burning without generating smoke (see Charcoal).

Lighting the fire would have been accomplished with flint and iron strikers. However, once lit, the fire would be easy to maintain continuously for long periods of time; banking a fire in a sunken hearth with plenty of ash is significantly easier than banking a fire on open, level ground. The fire could easily be tended at night in winter, or banked overnight and rekindled from coals for cooking in the morning during the summer. Summer cooking may also have moved out-of-doors, and hearths are evident outside of roundhouse structures (probably also used for laundry and other outside tasks).

Ash builds up more slowly when burning charcoal, and more rapidly when burning firewood, but it invariably builds up to the point where the pit would no longer be below ground. Therefore, digging out ashes from the hearth would have been a routine chore; this is confirmed by the presence of large quantities of ash and charcoal dumps in the middens. The ashes themselves would likely have seen some use for making lye (see Lye), prior to being discarded; they may also have been periodically used for food preservation or for craft purposes. Daily cooking, however, clearly generated more ash than was needed for these alternative uses, and the ash also, conveniently, helped neutralize odors in the middens.

Fulachtaí Fiadh

In discussing hearths, some mention must be made of fulachtaí fiadh, or burnt mounds. The fulachtaí fiadh are generally built-up, crescent-shaped embankments surrounding a central rectangular shallow pit, which is often lined with wood or stone. The presence of charcoal spread, heat-cracked rocks and ash deposits in the artificial embankments suggest large, repeated fires at these sites, used to heat stones. The rectangular, lined pits are usually full of water, either from a spring or seeping up from the water table.

These features were made famous by Geoffrey Keating in his 1634 book, Foras Feasa ar Éirinn (History of Ireland) (2). Much speculation has since then surrounded these unique places, debating their function and origin. Unfortunately, they have largely been taken out of context and are often associated with kingship rites and feasting ceremonies written of in medieval manuscripts. A quick overview of these burnt mounds will show why they should not be mistaken for cooking hearths.

First, modern analyses have determined that most of these burnt mounds date from the Late Bronze Age, and very few examples appear to be Early Medieval. Thus, they should not be erroneously linked to the activities and laws of the Early Medieval Irish. For example, the Early Medieval Irish had very advanced textile-production technology and performed skilled dyeing in their own homes. Evidence from these fulachtaí fiadh may suggest that they were in use for scouring and dyeing wool; if so, this should not be held as contradictory of Irish indoor dyeing practices, but rather as an earlier stage in technology. A millennium separates the two periods.

Second, the form of these features is quite different from the domestic hearths of Early Medieval settlements. These burnt mounds were located at significant distances away from any contemporary dwellings, usually in wet or flood-plain areas with woodlands, and typically built near springs or in low-lying areas where the water table was very high. Thus the pit would fill automatically with fresh water. Some attempt was made to filter this water as it seeped into the pit, using sand, moss, and wooden boards to prevent mud from infiltrating the trough. The crescent-shaped mound was built up by repetitive dumping of ash or charred remains from fires.

Third, these pits have no evidence for use as hearths themselves; rather, hot rocks from an external fire were placed into the pits to heat water. There is also no evidence of stakes for spits or pot-hanging. A few of these sites have some remnants of light structures nearby, which may have been drying racks of some kind (ie, wattle tables for drying fleeces or perhaps frames for stretching hides).

In “The Environmental Context and Function of Burnt-Mounds: New Studies of Fulachtaí Fiadh” (3), new analyses of various sites demonstrated that these features were likely multi-functional washing pits, perhaps used mostly for cleansing hides and wool, and perhaps textiles, and potentially for dyeing and tanning. The activities performed at these Bronze Age utility sinks would have been smellier or less agreeable tasks that would have been deliberately taken away from the settlement to keep pests and odors far from home. They found no evidence for brewing activities, and very little evidence of butchering or feasting (which suggests that these were not cooking troughs—hardly surprising, since they were in-ground pits filled with water from the surrounding dirt, however filtered, and not likely to be appetizing when there was clean, potable water readily at hand and cooking pots were available).

Thus the fulachtaí fiadh should likely be ignored in the context of studying Early Medieval Irish culture, and particularly in regards to cooking and hearth-keeping. These sites are primarily a Bronze Age feature, and likely used for purposes other than domestic cooking or feasting. Studies of Medieval Irish feast culture and bathing should focus nearer the home, on the abundant evidence of cooking, washing and hosting inside settlements.

Sources:

1) Lynn, C.J. and J.A. McDowell. Deer Park Farms: The Excavation of a Raised Rath in the Glenarm Valley, Co. Antrim. Baird, 2011. All of the photos and information on domestic structures and hearths in this overview comes from this archaeological report, unless otherwise specified. I am enormously indebted to the authors of this fantastic work, and I highly recommend anyone interested in the topic of material culture in Ireland should try to acquire a copy of the book, if possible.

2) Keating, Geoffrey. Comyn, David and Patrick Dinneen [ed]. Foras Feasa ar Éirinn le Seathrún Céitinn, D.D.: The History of Ireland by Geoffrey Keating, D.D. (Book I-II). Irish Texts Society of London, 1914.

3) Brown, Antony, et. al. “The Environmental Context and Function of Burnt-Mounds: New Studies of Irish Fulachtaí Fiadh.” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, Vol. 82, 2016. p. 259-29