Stone oven in a 1807 kitchen

Earlier this year I moved into a new home (built in 1807) which happens to have an old stone oven in the kitchen (about 1.5 – 2.0 meters in diameter).

Rumor has it that this used to be the town bakery. Locals of informed me that it’s important to start the fire in the stone oven slowly so as not to cause some thermal problems with the stone and encounter cracks. But still few people have ovens like this and French still throws me at times so my present information is somewhat limited.

The stone oven is 3m (front) by 2.5m side. Inside, the diameter is 1.8m exact; and height?, still too dusty to climb inside. There is no flue in the oven per see. The fumes/smoke exit by the only opening and exit through a rather large chimney flue located just in front and above the oven. This flue is about 1.5m width across from left to right.

As we live in what was the old town bakery, we’ve been thinking of doing a “baking” open house – the oven, once started, no doubt will be able to do several loaves of bread, right? By the way, wouldn’t mine any good/great recipes for “pain à l’ancien” (that’s old-style bread in French). Anyone to share any?!

Kind regards,
John
“Le Grand Bûcher”
(The Big one To Work, The Large one To rough-hew but per Stone)
Bioley-Magnoux