www.earthovens.co.uk started it – a Sunday afternoon’s lazy random browsing on the internet clicking from link to mindless link, and all of a sudden I’d found my new project – I wanted an earth oven!!! So I enrolled on the course, last May, on a rainy Herefordshire weekend, and spent two days with 8 fellow dreamers learning how to build a traditional bread oven out of mud. A fab weekend it was too, despite the inclement weather – excellently facilitated by the knowledgeable and laid back Richard Scadding, and hosted in a friends idyllic converted chapel in the Marches, complete with existing bakehouse and earth oven, which produced some fine baked goodies throughout the weekend.

digging the foundations

mixing concrete

tapping and smoothing

the finished foundations and bakehouse

Anyway, that was 2008, enough deliberation. I have been champing at the bit for over a year now, and finally my own project is under way – I’m aiming to finish in time for Lammas, the ancient harvest festival celebrated by baking a loaf with autumns first grain, on 1st August. Check out the Real Bread Campaign for other events happening in celebration of Lammas.

I’ll be hijacking loafonline to chart the highs and lows of the project over the next few weeks, and if anyone wants to get involved then drop me a line at info@loafonline.co.uk – any willing feet for puddling, or bricklaying expertise will be gratefully received! I’m also hoping to share the finished oven too, not just keep it to myself, perhaps get some community baking going – so if this sounds up your street, do get in touch.

This weekend, with a little help, the foundations got dug, and the concrete got poured. I’ve also had a shelter/bakehouse built by a carpenter friend, which eventually will have a sedum roof on top. The foundations are a foot deep as I think the plinth and oven combined will potentially weigh a couple of  tons! As the photos show, the plinth is circular and about 4 foot across. The concrete was poured on Sunday and is nice and hard already so I should be all set for starting the brickwork this weekend, I’ll let you know how I get on!

Tom.

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