Antique Grates between £0 and £0
An iron basket or grate that holds coal or logs clear of the hearth floor, so air can reach the fire from below.
What Are Antique Grates?
Most of what carries this heading is a free-standing cast iron fire basket. "Fire basket" appears in just over a third of titles and "cast iron" in about a third, and the typical listing is English, described as Victorian or dated around 1900. "Large" turns up in a sixth of titles.
Grates were developed to hold fuel off the hearth floor as coal replaced wood as a domestic fuel from the 17th century. Free-standing baskets on legs or on andirons served open hearths and inglenooks; register and hob grates were built into narrower chimney openings.
Almost a quarter of titles name andirons or fire dogs, either supporting the basket or sold with it, and that pairing leans harder still in current stock. Inglenook and log grates for wide hearths are a smaller group, described as wide, curved and heavy. Built-in register, hob and combination grates are the scarcity. Wrought iron and steel-and-brass work make up a small minority, wrought iron more visible in what is listed now than across the archive.
Dates run from 1700 to 1960 across the listings carrying a clean year, though period labels are broad: 19th Century, Victorian, Edwardian, with turn-of-the-century the single commonest signal. Style name and date part company often enough to notice, with Georgian, Regency and Adam style grates carrying dated fields in the 1920s.
Where The Range Widens
Size and completeness carry the range. A single fire grate or basket sits low; the upper reaches are the heavy things, described as large, huge and very heavy, and the sets that arrive whole. Grate with andirons, and grate with andirons and a fireback, cluster in the upper half.
Built-in grates behave differently from free-standing ones. Register and hob grates are a handful of the samples, yet a Georgian register grate fireplace and a Georgian hob grate with surround sit at the very top, while a plain hob grate on its own sits near the bottom. The surround does the work.
Ornament and metal separate the rest. Brass with cast iron, polished steel and brass, and figural casting lift a piece: dragons, a winged griffin, a Celtic cross, a nautilus, a parcel-gilt cherub, each appearing once or twice in the whole archive. Named design styles do the same, with Adam, Regency and neoclassical work recurring through the middle and upper range against undesignated cast iron grates lower down.
Retail Price Guide 2026
Typical UK retail prices for grates between £0 and £0, calculated from the Sellingantiques database of over a million retail prices indexed since 2003. This retail price guide relies exclusively on Sellingantiques data; no external sources or auction records are used, so the figures do not describe the wider market.
The most expensive grate ever sold on Sellingantiques was a large Georgian register grate fireplace, in June 2020.
The Antique Grates between £0 and £0 Glossary
- Fire basket
- A free-standing basket-shaped grate, and the commonest form under this heading, named in around a third of titles.
- Andirons, or fire dogs
- The pair of uprights that support logs or carry a basket above the hearth floor. Named in about a quarter of titles.
- Register grate
- A grate with a closing plate, the register, in the chimney throat, built into the fireplace opening rather than standing free.
- Hob grate
- A built-in grate with flat side platforms, the hobs, for standing kettles and pans.
- Dog grate
- A grate integrated with a pair of dogs, or standing between them.
- Fireback
- A cast iron plate set behind the fire to throw heat forward and protect the brickwork. Sometimes sold as part of a set.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a fire basket and a grate?
Grate is the general word for the iron fuel-holding part of a fireplace, free-standing or built in. A fire basket is one form of it, basket-shaped and standing on its own legs or on andirons.
The two words are used together across these listings. "Fire basket" appears in around a third of titles, and many of those describe the piece as a grate in the same breath.
Are most antique grates cast iron?
Cast iron dominates. It appears in about a third of all titles, and the crisp repeated ornament on these grates comes from iron poured into moulds.
Wrought iron, hand-forged rather than cast, is a small minority across the archive at roughly one title in twenty. It is a larger share of what is currently listed on Sellingantiques. Brass and steel show up as trim or as mixed-metal work.
Why are andirons mentioned so often?
Because the basket frequently sits on them. Andirons, also called fire dogs, are the uprights that support logs or carry a grate clear of the hearth.
Almost a quarter of titles name andirons or fire dogs, and live stock leans further that way. The phrase "basket andirons" has gone from a rarity to nearly a fifth of current listings.
What is an inglenook grate?
One made for a large recessed open hearth. These are the physically distinct group, described as wide, curved, huge and very heavy.
They are a small share of the category, around one title in fourteen, and log grates sit alongside them.
How old are these grates usually?
The dated field runs from 1700 to 1960 across the listings carrying a clean year, with an early 18th-century iron fire grate at one end and a hand-made forge grate of 1960 at the other.
The commonest single signal is a turn-of-the-century date, with c1900 in a tenth of titles. Victorian and 19th Century are the broad labels that recur most.
Anything before 1800 is thin on the ground: a handful of one-off 17th- and 18th-century entries.
Does a Georgian or Regency label mean a Georgian date?
Not always. Several grates described as Georgian, Regency or Adam style carry a dated field in the 1920s, so the label is recording style rather than manufacture.
The titles themselves often say "style" outright. Where a listing gives both a period name and a year, the two are worth reading as separate pieces of information.