Masonry oven these primitive-looking ovens were still being produced in Barnstaple potteries as late as 1890". A cloche or cooking bell is like an upside-down, fired ceramic bowl with a handle on top. It is heated in the fire along with a flat rock or open spot on the hearth. The prepared dough is placed on the hot rock or hearth floor, and then covered with the cloche, and perhaps hot coals or ashes for additional heat. The method goes back to ancient Egypt and Greece, and was probably the first form of masonry oven. It is possible to get some of
Ceramic houses constructed using the principles of an ancient Chinese anagama kiln. In the anagama kiln system, a wood fire is built at the base of a slope, and the gases are drawn by a strong draft up the slope through a tunnel. When a dome is constructed at the end of the tunnel out of clay, the hot gases bake the clay structure to ceramic hardness. Ceramic houses Ceramic houses are buildings made of an earth mixture which is high in clay, and fired to become ceramic. The process of building and firing such houses was developed by Iranian architect, Nader