Fireplace liner...

[FlyingElk]

Hello everyone!

Firstly, thanks for letting me join the forums. It seems there is a wealth of knowledge here and I'm hoping someone will be able to help me.

We are in the process of renovating our family home in the UK (circa 1920's/30's) and are wondering about installing an open fire or woodburner, probably the latter. As such we removed the ghastly old 70's gas fire to discover a fairly small and shallow fireplace liner. Obviously this is not going to be big enough to accommodate the kind of large hearth we would like, let alone a large cast woodburner. I have tried to get some pictures of it to assist but it's not the easiest thing to photograph so apologies for that. It appears that there is a cavity behind the liner of around 6" and maybe 4" either side?

My questions are;
Do you think that this liner is original to the house or something that has been put in at a later date, possibly when the fire was installed?
If it is not original is there any way to find out (short of tearing all the plaster off the wall) if there is a lintle in the wall above it so that I can safely remove the liner and brick below it in order to open up the fireplace?

In any case I am aware that this may contain asbestos and will take appropriate precautions and dispose of everything responsibly.

Many thanks in advance

 

[FlyingElk]

A few more photos...

 

[bholler]

It looks to me like it may have been part of an old coal burning fireplace. I dont know enough about fireplaces in the uk though to give you much advice on the time period of that though. Here I would say that was late 19th to early 20th century up to the 1930s

 

[FlyingElk]

It looks to me like it may have been part of an old coal burning fireplace. I dont know enough about fireplaces in the uk though to give you much advice on the time period of that though. Here I would say that was late 19th to early 20th century up to the 1930s

Thanks for your prompt response. I am going to speak to a local Woodburn supplier and get their take on it. Fingers crossed for good (not expensive) news!