|
All
Saints
Parish Church |
|
 |
All Saints the Parish Church of Woodford in Wiltshire was completely reconstructed from the foundations upwards about 1845. It must be assumed therefore, that this was the time period when the warm air stove was installed. The stove which is installed in a floor pit in the centre aisle of the church, is covered by several cast iron open pattern floor gratings to allow the convected heat from the stove to rise into the church. As the overall width of the stove is greater than the opening provided by the gratings it is apparent that once the stove was erected in its position in the floor pit it could never be removed.
 |
 Front
view of top of the warm air stove.
|
 The firing end of the stove which still
has its old stoking tools left in position. |
 Rear
view of the warm air stoveshowing the flue outlet pipe. |
The flue from the stove runs horizontally under the centre aisle but the
position of the vertical chimney and its outlet could not be found.
|
The warm air stove
is marked with the maufacturers name Falkirk
Iron Co Ltd and is in
remarkably good condition considering
its age. The Falkirk Iron Works was established
about 1815.
Research
carried out by the Heritage Group considers the
stove to be of the Gill design which was in
production from the 1830's onwards. One of the
Gill stove's attributes is that it has 10 sq feet
of external heating surface for every 1 sq
foot of internal heating surface.
This is the first example of a Gill stove to be discovered by the Heritage Group. |
 |
HERITAGE GROUPHow this type of stove manufactured by a Scottish firm came to be erected in a
Parish Church in a small Wiltshire village remains a question waiting to be resolved.
MAY 2003
