238 On the Construction of Kitchen 



I put up an oven like that I now recommend last 

 winter in my lodgings at Brompton, and have made a 

 great number of experiments with it, from the results 

 of which I am fully persuaded of its utility. I pulled 

 it down on removing into the house I now occupy, but 

 mean to put it up again as soon as my kitchen shall be 

 ready to receive it. As I put up this oven merely as 

 an experiment, in order to ascertain by actual trials 

 how far it might be useful to poor families, the oven 

 was made small, and it was set in the cheapest manner, 

 merely with common bricks and mortar, without any 

 iron or other costly material. The grate of the closed 

 fire-place (which was 5 inches wide and about 8 inches 

 long) was constructed of three common bricks placed 

 edgewise, and a sliding brick was used for closing the 

 door of the fire-place, and another for a register to the 

 ash-pit door-way. The oven, which is of thin sheet 

 iron, is i8| inches long, 12 inches wide, and 12 inches 

 high, and it weighs just io| Ibs. exclusive of its front 

 frame and front door, which together weigh 6| Ibs. 



For a small family the oven might be made of a smaller 

 size, 1 1 inches wide, for instance, 10 inches high, and 

 1 5 inches long ; and it is not indispensably necessary that 

 it should have either a front frame or a front door of 

 iron. It might be set in the brick-work without a frame 

 perfectly well ; and a flat twelve-inch tile, or a flat piece 

 of stone, or even a piece of wood, placed against its 

 mouth, might be made to answer instead of an iron door. 



The only danger of injury to these ovens from accident 

 to which they are liable is that arising from carelessness 

 in making too large a fire under them. They require 

 but a very small fire indeed, and a large one is not only 

 quite unnecessary, but detrimental on several accounts. 



