38
THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
overlooked. To all intent and purpose the stripes might be streaks of
light and dismissed from the mind after the first glance.
On the following morning he was gone. I had no means of catching
and transporting the animal to safer quarters, so had to be content with
putting down some food (untouched) and wishing him God Speed, a
kindness which he repaid by rooting up some plants in my own and in a
neighbour's garden!
A farmer friend informs me that there are Badgers near Brentwood,
six miles from here, and there are earths in Epping Forest. My house lies
next to Raphael's Park, so I hope the old fellow will find sanctuary and
not come to the usual unfortunate end.
Percy W. Horn (Romford).
Oven Clocks: What are they ?—[The late Miller Christy, before
his lamented death in 1928, left in my hands the typescript of an uncom-
pleted article of his on this subject, one which if only remotely of scientific
interest, may yet appeal to members of a Club which makes a practice of
inspecting old houses as part of its field-meetings in our county. From
this article I cull the following extracts.]
"Clocks," so-called, are to be found in nearly all old [brick] ovens,
although nowadays few persons are aware of this. A century ago every
household in country districts baked its own bread: to this end an oven
of brick or stone was built and even today some of these are still in use.
In the more rural parts of my own county of Essex I know of several so
used.
In the district where Cambridge and Essex join, the brick oven forms
an external projection of semi-circular shape, having over it, just below
the eaves of the thatched roof of the house, a small tiled roof of its own.
The interior is horseshoe-shaped in plan, its average size being six feet
long by three feet broad at its widest part, near the further end : the height
within is about eighteen inches.
The heating of a brick oven was effected by lighting a fire actually in
the cavity of the oven itself, the brick walls of which became hot enough to
bake by radiating their heat inwardly.
This brings us to the "oven clock," which was a piece of stone built
into the brickwork at the far end of the oven, near the top. The housewife
required something to tell her when the time had come for her to put in
the bread : when the oven was sufficiently hot to bake, the "clock"
declared the fact by glowing brightly.
Quartz is known to become fluorescent when heated: usually therefore
a rolled pebble or small boulder of milky quartz, or less often, of quartzite,
was used for the "clock": such boulders are abundant in the gravels of
the Eastern Counties.
When the "clock" glowed brightly the housewife raked out the
unconsumed fuel and wood ash, swabbed out the oven-floor and put in
her batch with the long-handled "peel," one mass of dough at a time ;
the oven door was then closed for baking.
Editor.
Ingenuity of a Mouse.—It may be of interest to record an instance
of activity and ingenuity on the part of a mouse in my house here recently.