Owning your own home

Doesn’t look like cast iron to me. Is it magnetic? In any case, I wouldn’t strip it, total ballache. Sand it smooth and paint it a jaunty colour.

If that is cast iron I’d give it a fresh coat of paint. There’s a shop by us who restore them, but they pull them off and media blast them.

Likely to be slate. http://www.vicfires.com/13_original_mantel/m290.html

Question; strip it back to black or stay with white?

Glue gun some diamanté onto it. Mantlejazzle is very 2022.

We used Peelaway on our cast iron fireplaces. Very effective but messy and time consuming if you have a lot of ornate detailing. Yours look quite plain so should be easier and even if its not metal this stuff will work well. You will need to be careful with your newly laid floorboards though as you need to use water to wash down the surfaces after you've removed the paint.

congrats on your flat retaining an original fireplace. Ward Antique Fireplaces are just down the road and are generous with advice on care/restoration of these things if you fancy a walk.