Bricked up Archway - knocking through

[mike1978]

Hi,

We have house built with thick stone walls - about 80cm. In the kitchen, there is an archway covered by plasterboard which was the original exterior wall to the house about 100 years ago. We'd like to uncover it as a feature an also to let ore light though.

I've removed the plasterboard and surrounding plaster and behind there is all red brick sides and an archway in good condition going right across. I've removed a bit of the stone work where it was bricked up. I'm fairly sure it is well supported - most of it aprt from 20cm didn't have any stones under it anyway and it is the original back of the house - think it may have been a bakery or something!

What do you reckon - am i good to remove the rest of the stone that has bricked up the arch?

Cheers, Mike

 

[KenGMac]

mike1978, good evening.

Looks OK to remove, it would appear to have been installed some considerable time ago??

Is there a fairly recent "Extension" on the other side of this arch?

Reason I ask is that you may have located another Egyptian artifact on the other side, the arch reminds me of Egyptian relic hunter films??

Seriously, the infill does not appear to be supporting the arch, the arch is in what appears to be good condition, it will be a stunning addition to the house, and probably in keeping with the age.

What makes you think of a Bakery? the arch would appear too small for a horse drawn cart, but a hand barrow would fit well?

Ken.

 

[tony1851]

The infill won't be supporting the arch; in fact the one thing you don't do is to try and support an arch from below because all bricks in the arch must be in compression, and supporting an arch from below can induce tension in the mortar joints = collapse of the arch.
What does matter is that there is a suitable length of solid wall each side of the arch (aka 'abutment') to stop the arch spreading.

 

[mike1978]

Thanks Ken - my mate said to be careful of zombies on the other side - just my 5 year old son though sticking his hands through the hole!

Some of the pointing was loose in a small area of the arch so I've cleaned up the brickwork and will repoint it before removing the rest of that stone work. Then got a black Smith making an iron window frame to go in it which should help support it and also separate the kitchen and lounge with regards to noise a bit.

To be honest not sure what the house was used for originally - lots of different theories! Where those photos were taken from originally stood a 3 storey industrial chimney - I have a photo from around 1920 when they knocked it down. Next door but one is an old mill which ran off a mill race diverted from a river so possibly something to do with that - who knows!

 

[mike1978]

Thanks Tony - good to know aswell. There are no worries with the abutments - quite substantial!

 

[bernardgreen]

originally stood a 3 storey industrial chimney -

but one is an old mill which ran off a mill race

It may be that the mill was modernised with a steam driven engine replacing the water wheel and the chimney was for the boiler. The boiler and its fire were normally kept as far as possible from the grinding wheel to minimise the risk of a dust explosion.

 

[mike1978]

Here's the pic I have by the way - you can just see the water wheel for the mill at the bottom left -

 

[bernardgreen]

Mill on the left, the miller's home on the right and that new fangled steam engine built in the gap between them.