Paste color, temper, and texture are consistent when examined
microscopically. Resemblance is very close between oven sherds from the
Jamestown and Howland house sites, and between these and a large chip
obtained from the Smithsonian's oven purchased in Bideford. Except for a
somewhat lower proportion of temper, utensil sherds from various sites are
consistent with the oven fragments. The Smithsonian's 19th-century
Bideford pan also closely resembles these, except for the proportion of
temper, which is somewhat less. Further close resemblance of form exists
between the Jamestown and Flushing ovens and those in the Bideford Museum.
(Figs. 7, 9.)
In 1954 comparative tests were made by Frederick H. Norton, professor of
ceramics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Jamestown clay was used
for a control. Thin sections, made of sherds found at Jamestown, were
fired at several temperatures and the results recorded in
photomicrographs. Of the gravel-tempered sherd submitted in these tests,
Professor Norton commented, "The clay mass looks quite dissimilar from the
Jamestown clay."
No other identifiable English ware of this period compares with the
gravel-tempered pottery, the use of gravel for temper apparently being
restricted to North Devon. Gravel is found in red earthenware sherds from
Spanish colonial sites and in olive oil jars of Hispanic origin, but both
the quality and proportion of temper differs, as do the paste
characteristics, so that no possibility exists for confusion between them
and the North Devon ware.
The North Devon potteries produced gravel-tempered ovens that probably
were unique in England. Ceramic ovens were made elsewhere, to be sure;
Jewitt describes and illustrates an oven made in Yearsley by the Yorkshire
Wedgwoods in 1712, but it is in no way related to the North Devon form. We
have mentioned Dr. Pococke's allusion to "earthenware ovens" made in the
mid-18th century at Calstock on the Cornish side of the Devonshire border,
about 35 miles from Bideford; however, one may suppose that these were the
products of diffusion from the North Devon center, if, indeed, they even
resembled the North Devon ovens.
The closest comparisons with the North Devon ovens are to be found in
Continental sources. A woodcut in Ulrich von Richental's _Concilium zu
Constancz_ (fig. 35), printed at Augsburg in 1483, shows an oven whose
shape is similar to that of the Jamestown specimen. The oven in the
woodcut is mounted on a two-wheeled cart drawn by two men. A woman is
removing a tart from the flame-licked opening while a couple sits nearby
at a table in front of a shop. Le Moyne, a century later, depicted the
Huguenot Fort Caroline in Florida.[71] Just outside the stockade, on a
raised platform under a thatched lean-to appears an oven whose form is
similar to that of typical North Devon examples (fig. 36). It is a safe
assumption that the ovens in both Richental's and Le Moyne's scenes were
ceramic ovens, for both were used outdoors in a portable or temporary
manner. No other material would have been suitable for such use.
This portable usage gives support to Bailey's conjecture that the
Jamestown oven may have been used indoors in the winter and outdoors in
the summer. He noted that carbon had been ground into the base, as though
the oven had lain on a fireplace hearth.[72] Sidney Strickland, writing
about his excavation of the John Howland House site, noted that the stone
fireplace foundation there had no provision for a built-in brick oven of
conventional type.[73] Not having recognized the earthen oven sherd, he
assumed that bread was baked on the stone hearth. The pottery oven may
well have been placed on the hearth or have been set up in an outbuilding.
That ovens of some sort, whether ceramic or brick, were used away from
houses is borne out by occasional documentary evidence. In 1662 John
Andrews of Ipswich, Massachusetts, bequeathed a "bake house" worth 2
pounds, 10 shillings. In 1673, Henry Short of Newbury provided in his will
that his widow should have "free egress and regress into the Bakehouse for
bakeing & washing." In 1679 the inventory of Lt. George Gardner's estate
in Salem listed his "dwelling house, bake house & out housing."[74] Bailey
quotes the records of Henrico County, Virginia, to show a similar usage in
the South.[75]
[Illustration: FIGURE 31.--Pedestal bases of small chafing dishes or
standing salts. Top, exterior and interior of one sherd; bottom, exterior
and top view of another sherd. Colonial National Historical Park. (_From
Smithsonian photos 43039-C, 43030-D._)]
The only unquestionable evidence of how these ovens were used remains in
the Bowne House, where the oven is built into the fireplace back.
Originally, the oven protruded outdoors from the back of the chimney.[76]