51/755

Oven peel used for lifting bread and other foodstuffs in and out of a baker’s oven. Used in most farmhouses during the 18th and 19th C.
An oven peel was used for lifting bread and other foodstuffs in and out of a baker’s oven, which was usually very deep. They were in common use in most farmhouses during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This peel has a flat iron shovel and a long wooden handle. Nothing is known of its origins.

1 oven peel; metal [iron]; wooden handle; good condition

MERL 'Catalogue index' card – 'Miss Smith gives no indication of the origin of this peel. It was used for inserting dough and withdrawing the baked loaves from the brick oven, which lay alongside the kitchen fire in most 18th and 19th century farmhouses. // It is in the form of a flat shovel made of iron, fitted to a long wooden handle, which enabled the user to keep away from the heat of the oven when reaching right into it. The wooden handle measures 3 feet 6.5 inches in length, and fits into the socket of the shovel. This socket flattens into a flat handle of 1 foot 8 inches, which in its turn widens into the shovel. This measures 8.75 inches by 11 inches and tilts slightly upwards at the end. // See also 51/261.', Lavinia Smith Catalogue (D60/28) - 'A list of the contents of the East Hendred museum. July 5 1940 // Heating and Cooking // 169-170. Three peels for taking out the bread. One is wood, one iron and one steel.' (The other two are likely to be 51/753 and 51/754), Lavinia Smith Catalogue (D60/28) - 'A list of the contents of the East Hendred museum. July 5 1940 // The Fire and Hearth // 9. peel for taking bread from an oven . . Farebrother' (This could also be in reference to 51/754 and 51/753. The oven peel appears to be recorded twice in Lavinia Smith's catalogue on two separate lists - one perhaps made at a later date?), Heritage of the Hendreds Exhibition 1969 - 'Catalogue of Exhibits // Number 59 // Oven Peel // Lent by Museum of English Rural Life' (The catalogue description could also refer to 51/754 and 51/753), Heritage of the Hendreds Exhibition 1969 - 'Catalogue of Exhibits // Number 60 // Oven Peel // Lent by Museum of English Rural Life' (The catalogue description could also refer to 51/754 and 51/753)

Wood, Metal, iron

Rippon, Miss Dorothy May Lyddon (Agent)
Fairbrother, Thomas