Also coakle, cokle. [Derivation uncertain: possibly ad. 16th c. Du. kākel, kaeckel, kāchel: cf. kaeckel-oven ‘fornax figulina,’ kaeckel-stove ‘hypocaustum figulinum, tepidarium lateritium’ (Kilian); kakel, kachelen, ‘les tuiles d’vn poale,’ kakelstoue, kachelouen ‘poale ou estuves faict de tuille’ (Plantin); the Du. word is ad. Ger. kachel, earthen vessel, stove-tile, etc.]
1. The fire-chamber or furnace of a hop or malt kiln. Also called cockle oast.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. 105/1. A Cockle … the place where the Fire is made to dry the Malt.
1743. Lond. & Country Brewer, IV. (ed. 2), 257. The finest Way of drying Malts … is to do it in a Cockle-Oast-Kiln.
1807. R. W. Dickson, Pract. Agric., II. 243. Where … a cockle oast is made use of, sea coal is mostly employed.
2. A kind of stove for heating apartments, also called cockle-stove. The name is at present given to a large stove furnished with projections or ‘gills’ to give increased radiating power, and generally placed in a specially constructed air-vault in the basement.
1774. Blagden, Heated Room, in Phil. Trans., LXV. 116. An oblong-square room … heated by a round stove, or cockle, of cast iron, with a tube for the smoke.
1833. J. Holland, Manuf. Metal (Cabinet Cycl.), II. 178. Churches … and other large buildings are now commonly heated by means of a cockle.
[1836. S. Laing, Resid. Norway, 313. The most expensive article in every room is the stove or kakle-oven, which although only of cast iron, and very rudely formed, costs about 20 dollars.]
1842–76. Gwilt, Arch., § 3053. The high temperature stoves, such as the cokles … consist of large metal plates or surfaces of brick or stone.
1845. W. Bernan, Warming & Ventil., II. 207. The next step was to place the cockle, or kakle, as Mr. Laing writes it, in a separate chamber.
b. Sometimes applied to ‘the body or fireplace of an air stove,’ and to ‘the hemispherical dome on the crown of a heating furnace.’
1810. R. Buchanan, Econ. Fuel, 242. All kinds of stoves are more or less dangerous, and … particularly so, when the coakle or pan cracks or is burnt out…. The coakles, in many situations, soon fail in some part.
1844. C. Hood, Warming Buildings, 220. This case or cockle is enclosed in another case of brick or stone placed so as to allow a space of three or four inches or more between them. Ibid. (1879), (ed. 5), 224. Another form of the cockle-stove … consists of a cast iron cockle, on the outer side of which are a great number of projecting plates.
