A clome oven is a type of masonry oven

Masonry oven

A masonry oven, colloquially known as a brick oven or stone oven, is an oven consisting of a baking chamber made of fireproof brick, concrete, stone, or clay. Though traditionally wood-fired, coal-fired ovens were common in the 19th century, modern masonry ovens are often fired with natural gas or...

. It has a removable door made of clay or alternatively a cast iron door, and was a standard fitting for most kitchen fireplaces in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

 and Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

. The oven would be built into the side of the chimney breast, often appearing as a round bulge in the chimney. This bulge consisted of the masonry surrounding the oven, and was intended to be dismantled should the oven ever need to be replaced. During installation, they are surrounded by packed clay to prevent the actual oven cracking.

To use a clome oven, one must enter the fireplace and build a fire within the oven. Dried gorse

Gorse

Gorse, furze, furse or whin is a genus of about 20 plant species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae, native to western Europe and northwest Africa, with the majority of species in Iberia.Gorse is closely related to the brooms, and like them, has green...

 or blackthorn

Blackthorn

Prunus spinosa is a species of Prunus native to Europe, western Asia, and locally in northwest Africa. It is also locally naturalised in New Zealand and eastern North America....

 was traditionally used. As the oven has no internal chimney, the smoke is allowed to escape through the oven door, and into the adjacent fireplace where it leaves through the main chimney. Once the oven is white hot, the hot ashes are either raked out or pushed aside, then the baking is put in, and the door propped up to the opening.

As cast iron range cookers were brought into common use, it became standard practice to build a dividing wall to split the fireplace into two separate fireplaces, thus allowing access to the clome oven, as well as providing a space of the correct dimensions to fit a Cornish range or similar. Bricks were the most common building material for this task, since the installation of a Cornish range required a brick flue to be built up the back of the fireplace. Many clome ovens were preserved in situ in this way.