Upon much thought about how I was next going to proceed with the restoration process; I chose to do more investigative work on the fireplace. So I removed the overmantle which appeared to me to be installed ca. 1780-1790 and a beaded board above it which finished the opening to the hood beam. Once I removed the overmantle , I notice that firebox seemed to be infilled between two columns of brick. These columns were made from early flat brick like the brick used in the smoke hood above this. The infilled brick being larger in size and in fact that the infilled firebox was falling forward. It had to come down. Notice on the second photo on this post you can see infilled rubble stone and brick and mortar above the nicely plastered jambs of early brick. This infill above the column of brick was laid up against the back of the corner cupboard. An impression of the backboards of the corner cupboard was evident in the mortar that had laid up against it. It is not know when this corner cupboard was installed up against these early jambs or when this firebox was installed. What is logical is that the two (corner cupboard and firebox) were built at the same time being the third building campaign of this fireplace. My feeling is that the firebox was installed sometime around 1750 and that the later overmantle was again changed sometime before 1800. More on this fireplace in my next post.