Bricking up old fireplace All manner of questions and solutions to problems and issues surrounding the subject of brickwork, blockwork and stonework

[gettingstuckin]

Hello all,

Am new to this site and hoping there are some fellow DIY'eys out there who can help me out as I go through the process of doing what I can in my new house. Good to have a sound board to ask a few questions. :-)

So issue is this:

I have taken out an old iron fireplace as I want to brick it up and plaster board it all and underneath the concrete hearth I removed is a strange archway of bricks sunken below the floor boards which stop at the main beam about 1.5 feet out from the fireplace. At the back of this, inside the fireplace and against the back wall, is an 7 inch drop off of dust and rubble which I dug down on and eventually came across bits of the laven plaster ceiling from the basement so I stopped digging.

I am assuming that the archway of bricks is something to do with the fireplace on the floor below but I can't see how they match up?

I have all the bricks and air brick ready to go but don't know how to prep the floor now that there is this strange archway. Previously it has all just been filled with concrete but now I have taken this all out. Do I just fill it with concrete again? Do I add new floorboards and place a 2x4 timber beam at the back in the drop off to connect them to?

Any help would be greatly appreciate.

Thanks

Sam

House: 3x floor, 1900 built.

[Perry525]

When you look at the roof and chimney or chimney stacks, you will see that the designer tried to make the place look right and balanced from the outside..
A good designer would try to keep as much of each chimney inside the outer shell of a house to keep the chimney warm.
At the same time it was important that the rooms also looked right from the inside
This often means that he took the main chimney from a fireplace in the middle of a wall in the main reception rooms and then had to offset the fireplaces and chimneys on the other floors.
A chimney stack is very heavy as bricks weigh in at around 45 kilos or one hundred weight per cubic foot, arches were the chosen way of supporting the load.

[gettingstuckin]

All done. No worries to anyone who might reply.