On Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:06:07 -0000, Rob Morley wrote:

On Mon, 04 Mar 2019 15:45:10 -0000
"Commander Kinsey" wrote:

I came across a shed today, 8x6m, brick built, with a slate roof, and
a chimney! Not a boiler or wood burning stove type thing, but a
traditional brick chimney. Any idea as to why someone would do
that? It was seperate from the house, by a distance of about 8m.

That was where they heated the water in a big tub called a copper to do
the laundry. As recently as the 1920s, apparently, as a house I lived in
had one, and my mum remembered using one. When washing machines and
domestic hot water arrived the coppers were removed but the chimneys
remained.

Ah, I knew about coppers (for taking a bath in), but I thought they were filled from kettles on stoves in the kitchen.