Hearth tax significant proportion of householders were not liable to pay at all. The hearth tax was much resented because it often entailed inspection of the interior of dwellings by the sub-collectors and petty constables, who had legal authority to enter every property to check on the number of hearths. Some people stopped up their chimneys so that the tax was not due on them, but where this was discovered by the assessors the tax was doubled. On 31 July 1684, a fire in Churchill, Oxfordshire, destroyed 20 houses and many other buildings, and killed four people. It was apparently caused by
Lancashire hearth of matter adhering to it with a third bar. Finally, the iron was gathered into a 'loop' which was lifted out of the hearth with a heavier bar and tongs, and taken to the shingling hammer. The process was more fuel-efficient and more productive than its predecessors. Lancashire hearth The Lancashire hearth was used to fine pig iron, removing carbon to produce wrought iron. Until the early 19th century, the usual method of producing wrought iron involved a charcoal-fired finery in a finery forge. In the beginning of the 19th century this became an obsolete process and was slowly replaced