Digging through decades of neglect, a bread oven is revealed - Our French Renovation, The Good Life

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After spending countless hours removing cement render from internal walls, one wall stubbornly refused to dry out. Further investigation into the cause was in order. On the outside of the building an ancient bread oven was missing it's roof, allowing the soft clay surrounding the old tiled oven structure to act like a giant sponge.

Digging out the bread oven proved incredible hard. Every shovel just hit broken tile and granite boulders. It was interesting none the less. Having seen up close the charred condition of the tiles and bricks, the poor quality of the materials used in it's construction, we felt sad for those that ate the bread coming from this ancient oven.

Surfaces of bricks and tiles were crumbling and would have left gritty ash on every loaf. Towards the end of the ovens life the bread from this oven wouldn't have been at it's best, however who could deny the pleasure of you get from freshly baked bread.

It may have been that the bricks on the floor of this oven were replaced on a regular basis as although every one came from the same brick yard, fonts, letter spacing and thicknesses all varied greatly. Also, underneath the bricks was a thick layer of ash, suggesting that they were regularly lifted.

To stop our damp problem, the bread oven floor needed to be lowered over 2 meters, but with a serious heat wave, that was proving hard. Unfortunately, even with the oven walls now drying, the lounge walls still show few signs of drying out. We'll have to be patient as there were decades of damp built up in this wall and it was simply saturated.

Many would argue that deconstructing an ancient bread oven is sacrilege. However, in it's present condition it's causing major damage to our main building. It had been walled over since the 1930's and we have no use for it, although we can now convert it into a downstairs toilet. Bread ovens in this area aren't rare, with approximately 60-70% of all houses in our village having one. We will keep the theme of the oven, with the round internal walls and the metal door, however it will not be used as an oven. It is important to remember this house had been abandoned for 30 years and without some kind of re-use, houses like this often quickly become ruins.

#timeteam #archaeology #prehistoric #archaeologist #yesterdaychannel #history #prehistory #breadoven #france

Music from #InAudio:
Cinematic Documentary Neo Classic by Infraction [No Copyright Music] / The Road.


Music from #InAudio:
Cinematic Inspirational Epic by Infraction [No Copyright Music] / Big Sky.