Ipswich UAD child record record IPS 1171 - Oven 3038

This oven comprised an area of reddened fired clay (3038), surrounded on its south side by unfired yellow clay, and, on the north side by a layer of grey ash (3036). Large pieces of charcoal were located above this surface and the clay was cut by a linear channel filled with ash (3050). The structure was 1.5m, from north to south with 80cm of deposits surviving from east to west (the west side was removed by later pits).
Excavation through the loose top layers of clay exposed the residual traces of the oven wall (3037) on the north side. It was hard fired on its inside face, and grey in colour. Two post holes (3065, 3066), against the north side of the wall of the furnace, may have been inserted to hold the wall in place at its time of construction.
To the north of the oven, there was an ash filled shallow pit (3036), presumably the stoke pit. This was linear in shape, with a flat bottom, and set 50cm into the natural. At the eastern end of wall 3037, there was a truncated flue arch, linking the oven to the stoke pit.
Excavation of the ash filling the linear channel (3050) revealed a heavily fired grey clay base to which adhered vitrified material.
Both the stoke pit and oven had been slightly recessed into the ground surface. At the far south end, the fired clay floor lay on a base of flint cobbles (3067), set into sand which had reddened under the intense heat, (S1).