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I presume I shouldn't leave a void here? What should I fill the space with? thanks in advance

Is there nothing they didn't make from asbestos? :x

Update to this, from a friend of mine with a handy electron microscope The chimney breast was uncontaminated vermiculite, well done to those who picked it The kitchen tile fragment I sent him as an afterthought was chrysotile Marvellous :( I've been hacking these up for a few weeks...

If anyone can recommend an asbestos lab that would be great...they don't really seem to be springing up on google

Yep, that would describe it well enough Was it in use in the 50's or is it likely to be more recent? I suspect this fireplace opening was reduced in size at some point with vertical house bricks around the edge...

Some bits look and feel like a very soft pale wood, but flake away to the touch. I guess a microscope would be needed but they don't really look like fibres Other bits look more crystalline, perhaps where it has been exposed to more heat

Cheers John Yes, I had found vermiculite in my research

I'm just hacking out a firebrick in a 1950s council house and there's some odd material behind it... Initially looked like very crumbly mortar but on closer inspection looks to have insulating properties... fused together spherical lumps, part mortar maybe, part a kind a scaly crystalline...