Hi Richard,

In England brick bread ovens formed an integral part or were added onto the massive inglenook fireplaces that became popular in houses after the demise of the open hall. The oven door opening was positioned inside the large fireplace. The oven did not have its own flue so instead once the fire was lit all the smoke and flames exited through the loading door into the inglenook fireplace then up the main chimney flue. Once the oven had been burned and heated up to a temperature sufficient for baking then the ashes were quickly raked out into the fireplace below the oven without fear of setting anything alight or causing smoke in the room. The one difference that I note is that many of these English ovens did not have a metal door since metal is a very good heat conductor which would have quickly cooled the oven, instead they had a simple wooden door that was lifted into place to block the oven during the baking process. Understandably very few of these old wooden shutter type doors have survived.

I have pictures of this type of oven if only I could figure out how to post them. I note that some of the free picture posting website are now arramged such that it's no longer possible to create a single picture URL and instead now feature a picture show folder. How do we overcome this problem ?

Regards

Ken Hume


Looking back to see the way ahead !