King's Oven

If you're wandering through Corbridge and happen upon these shuttered stone lancets, look no further than these two holes in the wall! For this is where you'd have come over the centuries to make bread and get fed!

This is the King's Oven.

Built into the surrounding walls of St Andrew's Church this is an early oven, pre NEFF style, minus the slide and hide doors; maybe a bit more lift and shift, toast and roast.

Back in 1200, King John saw fit to grant Corbridge the title of a royal borough due to its prime positioning at a junction of two roads, making it an up and coming place of commerce. Living under a system of medieval land ownership where land was held by the King in exchange for economic or agricultural services, villagers were granted the same privileges as the people of Newcastle, Rothbury and Newburn, where tenants paid rent to their King for the right to live and work there.

King John gave the rights for a weekly market to run, and Corbridge became a prosperous village both socially and financially. You can find the remains of the old village cross near the entrance to the Vicar's Pele Tower, which is now a tiny pub called The Pele.

Despite the King's wealth, people lived in relatively humble homes with minimal means of cooking. Tenants would have had to have their corn ground in mills belonging to the King, of which there were a handful close by along the Cor Burn and one a mile away at Dilston. People then had to pay for the privilege of baking their bread in communal ovens also owned by the king.

In 1310, this bread oven was built and introduced to the people of Corbridge. Made from bricks and faced with stone, the oven would be fired with wood. The bricks enabled the ovens to reach and maintain fierce heat, enabling meat to be cooked in the oven after the initial baking of bread. The ashes would be raked across the base of the oven and meat left to tenderise.

One oven master would oversee the whole process, but peasants would come from around the vicinity carrying home kneaded dough on wooden boards. Having proved at home by the warmth of the fire, they'd rush through the lanes of Corbridge before the cool of the air compromised the cooking in the King's Oven.

Each loaf would be crissed and crossed and marked in a way making it specific to the baker, so upon return, you received your own loaf and not your neighbour's sub standard heavy offering!

Homes were built largely of timber and clay, and roofed with reeds, so the risk of fire was great. The communal nature of the King's Oven would have been a welcome addition to community life as people would have been oven-less and would have gathered around the centrally placed location in the village, socialising, catching up on news and waiting for their loaves.

The King's Oven In Corbeidge had a long, long life in the village.

Situated in a wall at the west end of St Andrew's Church, its exact location is highlighted by the original square paving stones below the wall and the wooden lancet covers, which now hold the space. It was a place for meeting and eating for over 500 years, used into the 19th century when people may have popped in their roast before church on a Sunday.

With the arrival of smaller, safer ovens for people's homes, and the advent of ready baked bread, the communal over has cooled its coals over the last two hundred years. Built just prior to the vicar's pele, the King's Oven and the hearse house are all Grade II Listed Buildings.

The oven is a subtle stone reminder of how community life used to be, making and breaking bread with the people of Corbridge.

If you're stopping by The King's Oven, why not visit

Corbridge Pele Tower or Corbridge Roman Town?