Fireplace surrounds in stone, marble and wood

A fireplace surround has to do two jobs at once: frame a fire safely and sit correctly in a room. The second one is where most of the disappointment happens, and it is almost always about scale. A surround that looked generous in a showroom can overwhelm a modest Victorian chimney breast, and one that looked delicate can disappear entirely on a wide modern wall.

That is the single strongest argument for the way we work now. We measure your opening, look at your ceiling height and your floor, and hold the actual samples against the actual wall. Only then do we open the brochures.

Materially, the three ranges do different things. Stone — limestone and sandstone — is the most forgiving and the most common in new builds. Marble, being non-combustible, can be built to a much smaller scale, which makes it the answer for tight period openings. Wood offers the widest range of styles and the most convincing period detail, and pairs with cast iron, marble or granite interiors.