Take the inside out
Outdoor fireplaces are an increasingly popular way to cosy up your garden. Eleanor Doughty gets to the hearth of the matter
AN outdoor fireplace might, at first glance, seem a peculiar idea. Isn’t that simply a firepit? I hear you ask. Wrong—an outdoor fireplace is exactly the same as an indoor fireplace, except that it’s outside and, in some cases, has a chimneypiece to boot.
At the Wilderness Reserve in Suffolk, outdoor fireplaces are all the rage. From now on, all the newly restored houses will have an alfresco hearth, explains Lois Hunt, the creative brain behind their design. These fires, explains Mrs Hunt, are becoming something of a signature of Wilderness—at The Grange, a seven-bedroom farmhouse, there is a brick fireplace with a magnificent chimney that towers over the garden, built by specialist bricklayer Rob Songer. After all, she says: ‘The fire is the heart of everything. People love having barbecues and sitting outside, so it’s lovely to have a fire as well.’ They function in the same way as an indoor fire, she adds. ‘Some of them have a bit of cover, so you can be sheltered from the elements.’
Interior decorator Sarah Vanrenen is also a fan of an outdoor fireplace, having built two—one in her garden in London, and another in a flint barn next to her Wiltshire home. ‘Aesthetically, it’s wonderful,’ she says. ‘Sitting by the fire is such an inviting and comfortable place to be.’ If considering an outdoor fireplace, Miss Vanrenen advises technical caution and that specialist advice is sought, as, for example, ‘you have to make sure that the flue is long enough in order for it to draw, because, being outdoors, you are going to be subject to the weather.’ As well as this, the opening of the fireplace itself must be the right size: ‘not too big, because then it won’t draw.’ Engineering apart, there is much joy to be had from an outdoor fireplace, adds Miss Vanrenen. ‘It’s like having another room outside.’
Aesthetically, it’s wonderful. Sitting by the fire is such an inviting and comfortable place to be
How to make one work in your garden? For garden designer Jo Thompson, it’s about making the design ‘as subtle as possible, and not trying to make a statement. I think of it as a source of heat that needs to look good, but it’s not necessary to draw everyone’s attention to it’. It should be ‘a really simple hole in the wall, using naturally occurring local stone’. The landscape designer Graham Lloyd-brunt advocates ‘raising it off the ground—because it’s not indoors, you can be more unorthodox about the design’. At one property, Mr Lloyd-brunt has created an outdoor fireplace with a marble chimneypiece, akin to one in a sitting room. His client, he explains, has even ‘dressed it with ornaments’.