Victorian Fireplace

[LeDIY]

Hi,
We're currently renovating a victorian terraced house. We've just knocked a hole into our chimney breast in our living room- expecting a nice square shaped chimney inside. It looks deeper and squared off on the left hand side and seems to be less deep towards the right, like the back wall seems to come diagonally towards the right hand side. It looks pretty rough in there so perhaps its just rubble but wanted to see if anyone had come across anything like this before? is it possible we share the fireplace with the neighbour and both sides are shaped like this? we don't want to start chipping away and end up in their lounge! I've attached pics to explain but any advice would be much appreciated. We'd like to install a wood burner which won't fit into this odd shape at the moment....
many thanks,
Leanne

 

[Doggit]

It looks as though there's been some damage to the chimney breast at some stage, and they've repaired it with the grey blocks, and then covered it over. Open the fireplace up, then get a brickie to repair it. if you get some smoke pellets, you can test the chimney, and if you warn the neighbour, then they can tell you if there's any leaks in to their property, but it's very unusual to share the chimneys between houses.

 

[EFLImpudence]

No chance you will share a chimney.

The chimney is just what you see.
Victorian fireplaces are metal and fit in the hole backfilled with rubble.