1 gen 1657 anni - hearth

Descrizione:

The fireplace in a smith’s forge. The OED has an explicit example in 1398 but then a gap in the evidence until 1645. In Sheffield the word acquired an almost symbolic value: in 1547 Richard King left to his daughter <i>his greteste panne, the counter, the best stithie, bellowes, hammeres and tonges, with all thinges belonging to the same harthe</i> (TWH13/81): in 1558 Robert Wilkinson of Attercliffe bequeathed to his son Laurence his <i>byggest harthe with all geare to yt belongin</i>g: his son Edmond had his <i>lytle harthe</i> (TWH16/120). In 1657 John Spencer paid 17s to the masons for <i>getting the Hearthstone for the New Furnace</i> at Barnby (AR169). It is found also as a generic in ‘bloom hearth’ and ‘string hearth’, and may be the final element in the Sheffield place-name Brightside. This was recorded as <i>Brichesherd</i> in a charter of 1171-81 (PNWR1/209) and for more than four centuries ‘Brekesherth’ was a typical spelling, and an early seventeenth-century fine illustrates its development: 1611 <i>Brightside alias Brekesherth</i> (YRS53/152).

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