Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/746

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the oven; and c, the opening to a smoke flue which is regulated by the damper, d. This flue passes over the oven door by e to f, where it ascends a vertical flue, in order to escape into the atmosphere. Directly over e is a valve or register, which opens into the flue over it, and which is found extremely useful when the baker opens the oven to draw the bread; as it admits of the ascent of the steam and vapour, which would otherwise prove a great annoyance to the man, besides overheating the bakehouse. This register or valve is a plate so nicely balanced by two pivots, that it is opened and shut with the greatest ease; g is a vacuity round the mass of brickwork, for the sake of retaining heat. On the furnace side of the oven is shown a place for fuel, h; and on the other side, i, may be kept certain pieces of quartering, which are put in the oven between the bread and its sides; here also may be kept the peels, or long-handed shovels, used in drawing the bread, and other oven implements.

Fig. 1370 is a longitudinal section, in which is shown the door of the oven, with the register over it open at j; the smoke-flue above, k; the entrance to the smoke-flue, 1; and a small oven, or proving place, m, in which certain descriptions of bread are put, to undergo a heat of from seventy to eighty de- grees, to prove or raise the dough before it is put into the principal oven. This heat is communicated through the bot- tom of the oven above, and is retained by kceping the door always shut, except when ar- ticles are to be put in or taken out. There is another oven, n, of the same description, over the central oven, for proving at a temperature of eighty degrees. In order to save the whole of the heat generated by the oven, except what is radiated from the front of it, which we suppose to be barely sufficient in winter to keep the bakehouse at a proper temperature, we have shown it covered with a poultry-house, o, fitted up with nests, in the