A new characteristic was introduced into the Norman houses, and especially into the castles, the massive walls of which allowed chimney-flues to be carried up in their thickness. The piled-up fire in the middle of the hall was still retained, but in the more private apartments, and even sometimes in the hall itself, the fire was made on a hearth beneath a fire-place built against the side wall of the room. An illumination, in the Cottonian MS. Nero, C. iv., which we have already had occasion to refer to more than once, represents a man warming himself at a fireplace of this description. It appears, from a comparison of this (No. 70) with similar figures of a later period, that it was a usual practice to sit at the fire bare-legged and bare-foot, with the object of imbibing the heat without the intermediation of shoes or stockings. On a carved stall in Worcester Cathedral, represented in our cut No. 71, which belongs to a later date (the latter part of the fourteenth century), and the scene of which is evidently intimated to be in the winter season, a man, while occupied in attending to the culinary operations, has taken off his shoes in order to warm himself in this manner. The winter provisions, two flitches of bacon, are suspended to the left of him, and on the other side the faithful dog seems to enjoy the fire equally with his master. From a story related by Reginald of Durham, it appears to have been a practice among the ladies to warm themselves by sitting over hot water, as well as by the fire.[20] In some of the illuminations of mediæval manuscripts, ladies are represented as warming themselves, even in the presence of the other sex, in a very free and easy manner. The fuel chiefly employed was no doubt still wood, but the remark of Giraldus Cambrensis that the name of Coleshulle (in Flintshire) signified the hill of coals (_carbonum collis_) implies that mineral coals were then known. [Illustration: _No. 71. Indications of Cold Weather._]