What is a Parish Oven??

[geared]

A common saying in Sheffield is:

"A mouth like a parish oven"

 

I want to know if a 'parish oven' was something that actually existed?

I can't find anything outside of Sheffield/Yorkshire to indicate it was ever real?

 

My understanding from my relatives was that a 'Parish Oven' is a large oven in a village hall or pub that was used for cooking food to feed all the local people of the area.

[Obelix]

More or less. The oven would be run by the baker who would bake his goods and charge the parishoners a fee to bake their own in there as well. Since there were a lot of people used them at once, they were large, hence the saying..

[geared]

I can't find anything about them, what I know about them is from my relatives but it's weird they have no historical record online??

 

Did they have a different name elsewhere?

 

---------- Post added 28-01-2017 at 20:21 ----------

 

Literally if you Google 'Parish Oven' all you get is a pub near Worksop and a thread on here????

[Obelix]

Have a nosey here....

 

https://museum.wales/stfagans/buildings/georgetown_oven/

[cgksheff]

Communal ovens or bakehouses were common throughout Europe in Medieval times.

In more rural area of eastern europe/balkans they have persisted.

 

They were based on common sense in that the heat built up from wood to bake a couple of loaves for a family can easily be used to bake a lot more.

In parts of France, they became compulsory. Partly for fire safety and partly as a type of feudal taxation.

 

There is also a modern phenomenon of some villages having a communal pizza oven that gets fired up once a week.

[Jacktari]

If you read 'A Christmas Carol' here is a part where the local people are taking their food to be cooked on Christmas Day.

They do this in the bread bakers ovens, which for that day were no longer in use for baking bread, but were still warm.

Not so very long ago, the staple food was bread, as may be seen from the riots of the 19th century where the workhouses stores were opened and the bread distributed freely.

Parish ovens were where the bread was baked, and had to be large due to the number of people requiring bread.

[lazarus]

Sheffield Towns parish oven was in the appropriately named Bakers Hill.

[Chez2]

There was a historical 'bakery through the ages' programme on TV last year that covered parish ovens etc. There have been a few programmes of that nature, I usually watch them.

 

Oven bottom cakes are flat as they went on the bottom of the oven where there wasn't much room.

 

I thought it would be easy to find a link on line for you. If I find something I will pop back.

[altus]

There was a historical 'bakery through the ages' programme on TV last year that covered parish ovens etc. There have been a few programmes of that nature, I usually watch them.

 

Oven bottom cakes are flat as they went on the bottom of the oven where there wasn't much room.

 

I thought it would be easy to find a link on line for you. If I find something I will pop back.

There was that Victorian Bakers series on the Beeb if that's what you're remembering. Only the last episode is available on iPlayer and that expires at 3:30 tomorrow morning if anyone wants to watch it (most programmes on iPlayer are only available for 30 days after broadcast).

[mickey finn]

More or less. The oven would be run by the baker who would bake his goods and charge the parishoners a fee to bake their own in there as well. Since there were a lot of people used them at once, they were large, hence the saying..

 

There was a documentary on just before Christmas where chef Paul Hollywood travelled to Naples and they still do it there