The finishing touch above your fire

Solid oak is the beam most people picture: real timber, handmade in North Yorkshire from air-dried, structurally graded oak, in three styles and nine finishes. It brings grain, warmth and the sense that the fireplace has always been there. Its one constraint is heat: timber needs a safe clearance from the stove, so the design of the chamber decides whether oak can sit where you want it.

The Inglebeam exists for exactly that constraint. Cast in the UK to emulate real oak, down to the shakes and end grain, it is completely non-combustible, so it can sit closer to the stove than timber ever could. It will not warp or twist, and in most finished rooms guests cannot tell it from the real thing.

A natural stone beam is the third path: heavier, cooler in tone and completely at home over a farmhouse inglenook or a clean contemporary chamber. Stone is naturally non-combustible too, which makes it another good answer where the beam sits near the heat.

A word on fixing, because it matters more than people expect. A beam is a permanent piece of the room, so it is fixed to the structure properly, level and solid, never perched on a couple of brackets. Oak is heavy and stone heavier still, and part of the survey is checking what the wall behind can carry before anything is ordered.

Whichever way you lean, the beam is designed as part of the whole chamber, with the hearth, the wall finish and the stove itself, and we bring samples to the free home survey so you can decide in your own room rather than from a screen.