Getting Stuck In

How we made a Clay Cob Oven for the Saltscape

Many more children, young people and adults visiting Cheshire Scouts’ Forest Camp near Sandiway will now have the chance eat home-made pizzas and breads from a hand-made cob oven built on the site this weekend by the Saltscape Landscape Partnership.

Volunteers on our Clay Cob Oven course have had the chance to learn how to build the oven using ancient techniques, including ‘dancing’ on the clay with bare feet to obtain the right texture for it to be worked.

 

 

 

 

 

Getting hold of  the correct soil was no easy task ; until Saul Burton, Saltscape’s Project Officer met Eddie Saunt from AE Yeates Civil Engineers and Tunnelling Contractors who are working on the developments at Chesterway in Northwich.   In a very kind gesture indeed, Eddie arranged to supply us with over a ton of subsoil containing the type of clay that would be perfect for making the oven and even delivered it to the site, all free of charge.  Big thanks to AE Yeates!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next was to construct a permanent structure to act as a shelter for the ovens .

 

 

 

 

Mark Buxton, another colleague from Groundwork Cheshire Lancashire and Merseyside, ran the course having built many cob ovens in the past.  Many of the course participants hope to go on to construct another themselves having benefited from Mark and Saul’s expertise!