ScottishArchitecture.com

Spurred on by Tim Abrahams’ recent comment piece in Blueprint magazine, the gist of which was that architectural criticism is shifting from print media towards the weblog, and in parallel to that, the search for consensus is creating a general atmosphere of nostalgia – this piece attempts to prove otherwise.  This isn’t architectural criticism, nor is it indulgent retrospection about the past, as Tim puts it: but it’s an attempt to capture a little of our heritage before it disappears.  Telling the story – hagiography, if you want to sound grand – and finding merit in something which should be preserved for the future is a different thing to recalling the past in a purely sentimental way.

Above the street is the teeming blue-grey of slate roofs, and so many chimney cans the colour of buttermilk, piled upon the gables of the tenements, manses and howffs.  Their cores are dark mysteries, and their horns and gills are bruised with soot; they are breathless from chain-smoke, but Champion can stands apart, with his stubby fingers and shadow feet, his smoke chambers like Vostok rocket boosters …

Champion can sits at top left, with a Cardonald can and cap on the right, and a Wee Mac can below them.

With the slow death of King Coal over the past decades, the enormous range of chimney pots which was once available has diminished to a few dozen designs.  In the National Clayware Federation’s catalogue of 1964 there were five hundred patterns, and far more sizes; even in the 1970’s, there were dozens of large fireclay works producing chimneys, spread across Britain from Fareham in Hampshire to Kirkcaldy in Fife.  Now there are only three.  At the same time as the introduction of Smokeless Zones effectively killed the use of solid fuel heating in towns, the industrial potteries which fired their kilns using coal were also decimated.
   
Although the hand-manufacture of chimney pots is a dying art, there is still a marked diversity on our skyline:  mixed through the satellite dishes and TV antennae are products from another era.  That we have distinctive regional architectures in Britain is thanks, in a little part, to the quixotic variety of their chimney pots.  In the southern swathe of England are the Fareham Reds: bright vermillion, tapering pots with ornamental ribs and top rolls which are characteristic of country towns in Sussex, Kent and Hampshire.  The chimney-heads of both Regency and Victorian buildings are often graced with these pots, which complement the mellow red bricks of the Home Counties and to which the term “terracotta”, or burnt earth, can quite accurately be applied.  Although their simple design works well in most conditions, many of them are capped with zinc cowls like coolie hats.

In the Potteries area around Stoke-on-Trent, and further north into Yorkshire, are the many varieties of Leeds, Bradford and Halifax Windguards, which transform themselves from square bases through circular shafts into spiky crowns.  Further west is the Blow-Down pot, unique to the Carlisle area.  Many of these pieces of stoneware are finished in a traditional salt glaze which gives them a rich, mottled coat of chestnut brown.  Whilst several works, such as the Cumberworth Pottery in Cumbria, once turned them out by the thousand, now only Knowles of Elland are left producing them in small numbers.    Scottish “lum cans” are different again, in terms of their name, their shapes and even the fireclay’s colour.  Most are a pale creamy buff, thanks to the famous Glenboig Seam in Lanarkshire which was mined heavily and continuously until it was worked out in the 1970’s.  Many of these cans sprout horns, and some sport a cap like an upturned bucket:  both of these measures are intended to improve the draught of the pot and several patterns, including the Horned Emperor and the Cardonald Can, feature both.
   
Every type of chimney can suffer from down-draughts, and many different innovations have been tried to cure the common problem: all struggle to prevent a downrush of cold air before the fire has had a chance to warm up the lining of the stack, enabling it to draw effectively.  Otherwise, chimneys fight against the winds which swirl from neighbouring buildings and eddy in the lee of nearby trees.  If the simpler patterns of pot aren’t effective in curing blow-downs of smoke, then battle is joined: the eventual winners tend to be the patent Smoke-Cure cans, which are claimed to be the main force in combating down-draughts when everything tried before has failed.  The supreme expression of the "Smokecure" chimney can, the Champion, which has retained the same form and dimensions for the last 120 years.  It exists in a changed world where a decade is considered to be a long production life, and where many fads are measured in months: but has it survived because it's so efficient, or because it's trapped in a time-warp? 

Compared to the simple Plain Roll cans which are stout, pale and round, the "Champion" smokecure, properly called Peyton's Patent Champion Chimney Can (ncf 194), is the epitome of sophistication.  Also called Regis, or "A" on Ensor's list, the Champion has a tapering central flue which increases the velocity of rising gases, and eight bellmouths at its base which broaden as they rise, allowing smoke to be pulled down them if there is positive pressure at the top of the can.  The crown of spikes at the head is more than a mere distinction: the sharp points help to break up the airflow over the exhaust.  The Champion looks like a Victorian precursor to the space race, with its sleek, attenuated curves and tapering profile.  These features, along with complex internal baffles, are intended to cope with winds gusting from any direction.  As far as I've discovered, only Bairds & Dalmellington of Dumfries, and Howie's of Hurlford and Bourtreehill Coal Company, both of Ayrshire made the Champion in Scotland.  Bourtreehill's catalogue noted that-
"The Champion Can is designed to prevent the admission of down-draughts in chimneys.  It is simple, but ornamental in design, and having no cowl, cap or other obsfrucrion at the apex, can be swept or cleaned as an ordinary chimney can. In adverse winds and unfavourable situations it has been found a success where other cans have failed."

This Champion’s territory is nationwide: it has reached as far north as Inchnadamph in Sutherland, and is likely to be with us for a while yet, since all three remaining large stoneware companies – Red Bank of Measham, Derbyshire;  WT Knowles of Elland, Yorkshire;  Hepworth Stoneware of Crow Edge, Sheffield – still carry the Champion on their list as a “to order” pattern.  That’s not the brave, upstanding decision it sounds: it sells in tiny volumes in this country and there’s virtually no export market; yet there is a niche for it and if you already have the moulds, know that each can sold makes money, and want an extensive product list on company notepaper, then it makes perfect sense.  The Champion is also a good example of the hubris with which the Victorians named their innovations;  since then, advertising in the mass media has made us cynical and jaded.  Nowadays, we don’t believe the hype.  It’s surprising, then, that the claims made for these designs were never objectively tested, and even in the 1960’s scientists such as Eric Marchant were calling for research into how the application of aerodynamics might be used to improve the breed.  Medals at Victorian trade expositions don’t count for much in the era of British Standards and Euronorms.

Alas, there are far too many defunct producers of chimney pots to list them all here: but those with an interest in the panoply of designs which were once produced should seek out Valentine Fletcher’s “Chimney Pots and Stacks”, published by Centaur Press or Tim Battle’s “Chimney Book”, published by Idea Editions of Milan.  The fireclay industry began to decline in the 1950’s as drainage pipes became plastic, roof tiles were cast in concrete, and stainless steel flues were introduced.  When the closely-related refractory industry crashed in the 1970’s, it took with it many of the remaining architectural fireclay manufacturers.  Using Scotland as an example, market-leading companies thrived in the coalfields of Ayrshire and Lanarkshire for one hundred and fifty years:  since the coal measures harnessed to fire the kilns are often underlain by seams of fireclay, there was a happy synergy between raw material and the means of its transformation.  The mantle passed successively from the Garnkirk Fireclay Co. to J&M Craig of Kilmarnock, and finally the Glenboig Union Fireclay Co., which was the world’s largest fireclay producer for many decades–  but there were perhaps fifty other firms which once produced chimney cans and the last survivor, P&M Hurll, passed into the hands of the receiver in 1980.
   
Once you become aware of the myriad patterns which have been lost, you begin to question the whole concept of architectural “progress”.  Without being sentimental, it’s possible to recognise that in each piece of fired clay there is a wee bit of personality, a tell-tale of the craftsman’s hand.  The lack of this heart and soul is what – literally – dehumanises the mass-produced elements of Modern architecture, and it’s hard not to be disappointed by a modern conceit of a progress which actually narrows our options.  Now that the demand for coal fires and consequently for chimneys has fallen away, the continued vitality of our rooftops relies on controlling the salvage man’s appetite, on preserving Victorian values, perhaps – and ultimately in staying the demolition hammers which eat Champions for breakfast.