Portable oven

This portable ceramic oven was heated by lighting a fire inside the oven, shuting the door (now missing) and waiting for the oven to reach the right temperature. When it was hot enough, the baker would rake out fire and replace it with the bread, pies or whatever else was to be cooked. To test the temperature the baker spat, or flicked water, onto the oven. They would know how hot the oven was from the type of hiss made when the water evaporated. This oven was probably a portable one taken to fairs on a cart. It was made in North Devon. Ovens like this were also exported to America for 17th-century settlers to use. Thomas Farriner, the owner of the Pudding Lane bakery where the Great Fire of London started, would have had a much larger, brick oven in a similar shape to this one.