A fireplace is the most ancient thing in dwellings. It was starting in the epoch of late Stone Age when people made frames for fire in the form of stone circle for cooking. Smoke went into the hole in the ceiling.

Then a cone-shaped pipe appeared for catching smoke. But these changes had lasted for many centuries. In spite of low efficiency of a fireplace, it does not leave an architectural arena as it is eternal as a symbol. A fireplace not only heats a dwelling but emphasizes stability of a family hearth.

The first fireplaces appeared in Rome antique period. Their portals were cut in the walls with stepped jambs and were simple and modest. Simultaneously, in Ancient Rome heating channels were made which were under windowsills and hot air went to the house. Such systems were used in bath-houses (therms) and in the villas.

One of the most authorized architect of Renaissance epoch Andreo Palladio described fireplaces in his architecture treatise: "Ancient people used to heat their houses with the fireplaces having pillars supporting architraves above which there was a pyramid where smoke went out". This means that Ancient Rome fireplace was a separate construction with beams supporting a pipe but they did not touch the house walls.

Much later a fireplace was put to one of the walls in the house and only the next step in its developing was combining the stove and flue with a wall.

In spite of a modest facing, a fireplace played a sacral part (saved from evil spirits, supported man's life) and this part of hearth keeper was very important. Enemy's destroying of a fireplace in a house was similar to contamination of a sacred place.

In Middle Age fireplaces were of big size, so pilgrim knights could fry a bull in them. You can admire a triple fireplace in French city Puatie in the castle Duke Berriyskiy. A small two-storied house could be hidden in each of its parts. The fireplace is decorated with a gallery, three arcs, stone Gothic lace.

During Renaissance times fireplaces became the things of great interest for designers. Fireplaces portals were made of granite and marble and decorated with Florentine mosaic. Their composition included pillars, pilasters, the constituents of entablature. The sizes of flue and fireplace area along a wall were enlarged, different carved decorations appeared above fireplace boards. These decorations were of smaller size but very manifold and elegant.

In the XIX century fireproof bricks were used to decorate a stove. Till this time smiths improvise with a fire grate for wood in the stove. They are for free air to the wood and full coal combustion. There is a great variety of construction and decoration of pliers for burning wood turning, special forks for turning fire-wood, brushes with long handles and scoops for cleaning, bellows. In the XVIII century a poker for coal breaking appeared, buckets and boxes for coal, which later were changed with carved wooden boxes and grates for fuel. In the XIX century a fireplace screen appeared to save wooden floors, they were like nets through which fire could be seen.

In Russia the history of a fireplace is only some centuries, first they appeared in the houses of rich boyars and then in the epoch of Peter I fireplaces were put in the palaces. They were for entertainment as the climate in Russia was severe and served as a definition of master's social importance. It was a privilege of Russian nobility presented them by Peter I. Later, there was an ukase permitting the dwellers of German outskirts in Moscow to construct fireplaces.