We rarely look up, do we? I know, for myself, I tend to wander around with my nose firmly pointed towards the ground,
perhaps through a fear of tripping over something, but also maybe because I might come across a few coins that have escaped
from the hole in someone's pocket! (It does happen!)

But when we do look up - there's a whole new universe up there waiting to be explored, a universe exemplified by some spectacular
architecture sitting on the tops of people's houses: chimneys! There is a wonderful array of these everyday objects that we simply
just take for granted, and rarely, if ever, actually notice.

This gallery attempts to rectify this failing, to show some of the glories of the humble chimney! I hope you enjoy it!

(There is, incidentally, very little written on the subject of chimneys. The one significant source of information was published
in 1968 by the Reverend Valentine Fletcher, who amassed a personal collection of over 200 chimney pots, wrote a small monograph
on the subject, and coined the word "Caminology" for the study of chimneys, from the Latin 'Caminus' meaning furnace, forge or oven,
though the word never made it to the OED!).