Interview with: Paul Pursglove - Wayside Ovens

Date:16/04/14

Location: Hanley

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Mow Cop - Wayside Ovens.

Paul Pursglove 16/04/2014

During the last 200 years, wayside ovens were a public service facility in many villages.  They were usually built as simple structures within easy reach if groups of dwellings which would not have had ovens, relying on open fire cooking.  Wayside ovens could be used to bake bread on a daily basis.  They were fired up with wood and heated for an hour or more to warm them up to baking temperature.  The embers would be scraped out and the risen bread dough would be placed in the oven to bake.  A door plate would be closed and sealed with clay during the cooking to conserve the heat.  This was an all-weather, all year round task.

There are a number of reports for such wayside ovens in Mow Cop, a village high on a hill to the north of the Potteries. J. W. Harper writes:

“The last surviving oven on the slopes of Mow Cop was situated in the wall next to the Wesleyan Chapel at The Bank, a hamlet on the Cheshire Dip of the North Staffordshire Coalfield.”

The Primitive Wesleyan Chapel was refurbished late last century and the bread oven was completely demolished.  The stone has been disposed of and the wall and tarmac surfaces re-built.  The only evidence of the nature of this oven comes from a washed sketch in Harpers original text.

The size of the oven suggests that a single bake would produce perhaps 20 round loaves or 30 tin baked loaves.  This would have been an ample size for the surrounding households at the time.

I other documents, a supposedly different wayside oven was recorded on an alleyway adjacent to Westfield Road, which is itself more of a farm track at the back of a run of terraced houses.  This record is actually the same oven that was at the back of the Wesleyan Chapel as the pathway runs along the front of the same terraced houses.

The new build of the Mow Cop Primitive Methodist Church on Bank was in 1903 and the wayside oven was there at that time.  It may well have pre-dated the church construction, but there is no discernable documentation at present.

It is clear that the oven was not used in living memory and I have been unable to find any photographic evidence.

John Holland is a local man whose family has lived in Mow Cop for generations.  Now living at the end of Westfield Road, he has a good recollection of local knowledge and he does not remember the oven in use.  He does know that Well Street, nearby, is locally known as Bakehus Lane (Bakehouse Lane), as the old cottage halfway up the lane had a bake house built onto the side.  The locals would go and buy or bake bread there.  Known in the past as Lovatts Bakehouse, it may well have been supported by Joseph Lovatt, the baker from Rookery near the bottom of the Hill upon which Mow Cop stands. The house is now a private home and there is no evidence of an oven.  Like many of the properties in Mow Cop, it has been extensively refurbished in modern times.

J. W. Harper – 1907, A Short History of Mow Cop

Philip R Leese – 2010, Mow Cop; A Working Village, Churnet Valley Books

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Interview with: Paul Pursglove about War Bread

Date:16/04/14

Location: Hanley

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Baking Bread in War Time

Prior to the Second World War, most of the flour to make bread was imported from Canada and the United States.  At the outbreak of war, shipping was a prime target and food supplies became scarce as a result of enemy action.  The Ministry of Food introduced rationing and food production strategies in the UK to try and cope with the shortages.

Grains used – Common Wheat, Canadian Wheat, Spelt Wheat, Barley and Oats.

Flour types – Wholemeal flour, Barley Flour, Oatmeal Flour.

Many houses in the 1930’s and 40’s had cooking ranges and Yorkist fireplaces with built in ovens which were fuelled with wood or coal.  Electric and gas cookers with ovens were also in use, so essentially most households were able to bake bread to supplement the rations.  By 1942 most foods were strictly rationed, including bread and flour.  The only exception was fresh vegetables and fruit which were not rationed, but in short supply.

The ministry of food commissioned texts to instruct people how to make the most of their rations.  This included the National Loaf, devised by Doris Grant, one of the government food nutritionists.  This became known as the Grant Loaf and was a quick and easy bread to make which could be baked in any form in any oven with almost any wholemeal flour.

Other bread was available, but bakers were challenged to obtain enough ingredients to produce specialist breads other than wholemeal loaves or rolls.  Potato bread and barley bread were often made when flour was scarce.

Wholemeal bread – Loaves and rolls made from available wholemeal flour.

National loaf – Home made to Doris Grant’s recipe, often with local variations to add flavour.

White Bread – This was occasionally available when sifted flour was available.  Mainly in the South of England.

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Interview with: Paul Aspley

Date:16/08/14

Location: Hanley

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

We use to have a man who came round and delivered bread, he had a van I think.  His name was Alex.  I was 8 years old and lived in Blurton.  We had his bread every day.

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Interview with: Miriam - OCIS cafe

Date: 17/04/14

Location: Shelton

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Well we did it at school in them days we did, then I used to watch me mother, then I helped. We used to make dough, then kneading and then putting it in the bread tin, it's all flat when you put it in the bread tin in the oven, and when you pull it out of the oven, it rises. Years ago when we used to have a piece of that bread we used to call them noggins 'cos they were very thick, in them days we put jam on because other things were expensive. That was in 1952, when we made bread in school, something like that, cookery lessons, baking, cakes and that. I can remember making bread. But mainly watching me Mum and doing some meself, doing the flour and everything, kneading it. No we didn't have a recipe, all I remember is the flour and butter, yeast and warm water or warm milk. The dough, you knead it like that, keep doing it.

'Cos in them days then years ago when we used to make it there was no slice bread out, in other words we used to call it a noggin when it was  cut. No slice bread at all in them days. Cut them with a big knife, a carving knife. We used to tear it off for lobby.

The best of it, you talk about bread, was bread pudding. You can't beat your mothers bread pudding, soak it overnight, instead of throwing the bread away. Raisins, line a dish with it and use the bread for the walls. We used to have a piece of bread pudding and go out in the street eating it, lovely. I wasn't much for dripping, lard. Lard on toast me other brothers and sisters had it. I wouldn't have margarine, I had to have this butter. I eat mainly Flora now, years ago it had to be the best butter. Embreys, Champions, Mothers Pride, Hovis, Warburtons, Chatwins, Harrisons as well, Burgess's. Really years ago it was just, it was all the loaves what you cut up.

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Interview with: Michelle Swift

Date: 13/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

My husband works for one of the bakeries at Trent Vale, Mr Kipling. They have bread brought into the factory to help out with ingredients, he's an electrician. Well it's actually the main companies called Premier Foods and the different areas have different names, so this one in Trent Vale is called Manor Bakeries.

I must admit as you go along, come off Parkhouse Industrial Estate, as you are coming along the A34 there's the bread factory as you are coming into Chesterton (Embreys), oh the smell from there is just amazing as you are coming into Chesterton. It makes your mouth water. I'm terrible for bread I am. I had to change my bread, 'cos I eat much, I just love it. I had to change I was eating that much I putting weight on with it, so they advised me to change the bread to something a bit more healthier. I have a wholegrain 'cos I can't eat wholemeal it makes me really stodgy so I have have wholegrain. I get it from Tescos' and it's only Tesco that does it. It's £1.35 a loaf, a large loaf and it's only seventy one calories per slice. So yes I love it. I've always been brought up to have bread with every meal. My children will say to you, if I sit down at the table without bread, "Mum are you feeling alright?" "Why" "You have no bread" I think it's one of those gestures, that it filled you up as well so that you didn't have to eat so much of the main meal. They couldn't afford it years ago, really, so they had to stodge everybody up eating bread.

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Interview with: Michael Griffin

Date:22/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

In the late 40's through the 50's I grew up in The Westlands and we had brad delivered 3 days a week Monday, Wednesday and Friday. They would would drop 2 loaves on the back door step (it was under cover) and 3 on Friday's.  It was from Pickfords bakery, they had a son who would help deliver it sometimes.  I'm not sure where the bakery was but I think it's where the oatcake shop is on the A34.  We had tin loaves and cobs, we'd eat it with butter and jam on, there wasn't much else around in the early days.  My father would have bacon and cheese on it, I didn't have that.

In the 50's my uncle had a shop in Wolstanton and he would deliver to us.  He got his bread from Birkett and Roberts.

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Interview with: Maureen Williams

Date: 21/08/14

Location: Stoke

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I can remember going to th shop across the road to get bread for my mother, it was wrapped up then.  You use to get free daffodils with the loaves.  That was from Lathems, City Road, Stoke.  They did 'Mothers Pride' I think.

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Interview with: Mary Taylor

Date: 20/08/14

Location: Tunstall

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I can remember 2 bread strikes.  There was a bakery called Smith's and people would que and que, my father-in-law would go and stand outside and get us all a loaf of bread.

The second one was in the 70's, my husband had a friend who worked at the bakery and he would get a tray of bread.  He'd share this out around the street so everybody had bread.

My uncle worked for Roberts Bakery in Biddulph, he'd drop the bread off.

There was another type of bread, Almonds Bakery, that was an old one as well.

When I was at school you had cooking lessons, the whole room was like a kitchen.  We all did proper baking from scratch.  You had the yeast and the water and everything.  We made a whole loaf on our own then took it home and ate it, it was well worth doing.

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Interview with: Marie - N-u-L market

Date: 15/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Oh yes, Yorkshire bread is the best. I married a Yorkshire man and went to live up there, his mother taught me to make bread. She said, "Now you can make bread you are as good as Yorkshire girl", now that was a compliment!

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Interview with: Marian Evans

Date:25/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Dalit Fishman Hendel

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

When I was 9 years old we lived next door to a lady who was 95 my mum would tell me to pop in to her on my way home from school.  She would ask me if I would like to have a piece of bread.  The first time she asked me I said 'yes please' because I was hungry, as you are having walked home from school.  She got a loaf out, held it upright and buttered the top, then she cut the bread very thinly, the thinnest piece of bread I've ever seen. She put it on a plate and put some home made jam on it.  I often wished I could have 2 or 3 slices of this, if not more, but you only ever got one slice.

I think this came from the war years because she was around in the First and Second World War and was still being careful with food.

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Interview with: Margery Cooper

Date: 19/08/14

Location: Chesterton

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

There use to be a bloke that made his own bread in Hanley.  I got my bread from the Co Op on Wellington Road.

We use to go past 2 bakeries when we got the bus to Trentham.  I know one of them was called Lack's.

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Interview with: Margaret Salt

Date: 15/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I remember me neighbour use to make bread, it was like a bloomer.  She let it rise next to the fire, for quite a while....over night I think.  I never watched her make it, I wish I did.

My mum and dad had a shop in Park Hall Street, Longton, they sold bread and it was four and half pence.  I was born in 1933 and we moved into that shop when I was five, they sold everything.

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Interview with: Mandy Leyton

Date: 02/07/14

Location: Chesterton

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

My mum use to make bread in 1975, I use to come home from school and there'd be a bowl in the airing cupboard with a towel over the top and I'd think 'mums baking bread again'.  She would make bread and rolls, not all the time just now and again.

She came from Aberdeen and would make Aberdeen Rolls 'Rowies' they called them.  We use to have them warm with melted butter and jam on.

I helped her to make bread once or twice and she would explain to me about the proving and the kneading. She always use to say 'you can't knead it too hard'.  She'd put it in to prove again and then she'd bake it off.

There's nothing like the smell of homemade bread.  I don't know if I'd make it by hand myself, if I had a bread machine I probably would.

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Interview with: Mandy Ancas

Date:27/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Steve Cooling

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

As a kid we would have chip butties on a Friday because my dad didn't get paid until Saturday.  You could get a loaf of bread, half a dozen eggs and a bag of chips off the milkman and you didn't have to pay him until Saturday.  That was always Friday night tea as we didn't have any money left.

We only ever had white bread, now I only ever eat brown.

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Interview with: Man 5 N-u-L market

Date: 15/04/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I bought a supermarket loaf yesterday. I don't know what they put in it. I read the label, you know, it was like the Gettysburg address.

All I put on mine is flour, water, salt, yeast and a drop of olive oil.

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Interview with: Man 4 N-u-L market

Date: 15/04/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

Bakery, I lived next door to one when I was a kid, Oxford Road, Basford. I remember the men leaning on the wall, getting a warm at night. Sometimes me Dad would take me, he'd stand around and chat and the kids would play around, they'd be getting warm. We used to get the bread fresh from the oven, the shops still there, but not the bakery, well I don't think it is. Me Dad wouldn't go down the air raid shelter, that's why he were out there, he'd been in first war. He said the buggers aren't getting me down there, we'd watch the German planes going over to bomb Shelton Bar. (steelworks)

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Interview with: Man 3 N-u-L Market

Date:15/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

They don't make their own anymore (pointing towards Town Bakery in the High St) its Bengrys' or somebodys.

The one through the alley (Snapes) can make bread, but it's shut today. The only other place in Newcastle is the Polish, the shop down the bottom, every now and then it's real bread, but I don't like sliced, and they have it sliced. Every now and again they have it, they get a big round flat top loaf. 

My favourite bread is cheap bread, home made, like me Mum used to make.

Man doing his shopping in Newcastle

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Interview with: Man 2 - N-u-L museum

Date:03/05/14

Location: Newcastle - u Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

I used to work on the night shift at Embrey's, it was quiet but you had to keep your eye on things. Me Mum had a big family, thirteen of us and they said I could take home any brown bread. So I'd go home with handfuls of brown bread.

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Interview with: Man 2 N-u-L Market

Date: 13/05/14

Location: Newcastle-Under-Lyme

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

The pub at the end, The Blackfriars, that used to go down a bank there, there was a bakery down there, a little shop there when we were kids, sixty years ago, 'course it's all gone now, completely gone. And there was a bakers down on London Road opposite, can't remember the name, but opposite was a butchers it's a newspaper shop now and on the opposite side there was a bakery. They used to deliver, they'd take loaves around the area, there was two down there. Me grandmother had it off this one on the London Road they used to come round with a van, bring a loaf. It's a long time ago, isn't it, sixty years. White and brown bread, brown was my favourite, I think there is more goodness in it, wholemeal, this is too processed this white stuff, there's no goodness in that, no roughage, that's what you want. You've got to have good bread, good meat and milk, the best you can get, if you afford it.

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Interview with: Man in OCIS cafe

Date:17/04/14

Location: Shelton

Interviewer: Hilary Hughes

Permission given to use interview for website, exhibition and Staffordshire archive: YES

Question asked “What do you remember about bread or bread baking”.

This shop in Longton just over on the market, they make it (bread) and sometimes there's a crowd waiting outside to get a piece. They make their own bread and cakes, everything. I'm a potter, I don't know anything about bread.

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