Has the precise period been ascertained when chimneys upon the present
mode were first constructed in England? It was apparently not sooner
than Henry the Eighth's time; for Leland, when he visited Bolton
Castle, in Yorkshire, seems to have been greatly surprised by the
novelty and ingenuity of the contrivance. "One thing (says he) I much
notyd in the haull of Bolton, how chimneys was conveyed by tunnills
made in the sydds of the waulls, betwixt the lights; and by this
meanes is the smoke of the harthe wonder strangely convayed."
The front of St. John's Hospital at Lichfield, presents one of the
most curious ancient specimens extant of this part of our early
domestic architecture. This building was erected 1495, but it is
possible that the remarkable chimneys may have been subsequently
added.
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