[Illustration: FIGURE 9.--Gravel-tempered oven made at Crocker pottery, Bideford, in the 19th century. Borough of Bideford Public Library and Museum. (_Photo by A. C. Littlejohns._)] [Illustration: FIGURE 10.--Restored gravel-tempered oven from Jamestown. Colonial National Historical Park. (_National Park Service photo._)] The most remarkable form utilizing gravel-tempered clay is found in the baking ovens which remained a North Devon specialty for over two centuries. These ovens vary somewhat in shape, and were made in graduated sizes. Most commonly they are rectangular with domed superstructures, having been molded or "draped" in sections, with their parts joined together, leaving seams with either tooled or thumb-impressed reenforcements. An oven obtained in Bideford has a flat top, without visible seams (USNM 394505; fig. 6). An early example occurs in Barnstaple, where, in a recently restored inn, an oven was found installed at the side of a fireplace which is "late sixteenth century in character." Pipes and a pair of woman's shoes, all dating from the first half of the 18th century, were found in the fireplace after it had been exposed, thus indicating the period of its most recent use.[40] An oven discovered intact behind a wall during alteration of a Bideford house is believed to date from between 1650 and 1675.[41] That oven (figs. 7, 8) is now exhibited in the Bideford Museum. At the other extreme, C. H. Brannam of Barnstaple in 1890 was still making ovens in the ancient North Walk pottery.[42] The following year H. W. Strong wrote of Fishley's Fremington pottery that "shiploads of the big clay ovens in which the Cornishman bakes his bread ... meet with a ready sale in the fishing towns on the rugged coast of North Cornwall."[43] Fremington ovens also were shipped to Wales,[44] and, according to Jewitt, those made in the Crocker pottery in Bideford "are, and for generations have been, in much repute in Devonshire and Cornwall, and in the Welsh districts, and the bread baked in them is said to have a sweeter and more wholesome flavour than when baked in ordinary ovens."[45] [Illustration: FIGURE 11.--Sgraffito-ware platters from Jamestown. The platter shown above has a diameter of 15 inches; the others, 12 inches. Colonial National Historical Park.]