The first problem was finding enough time to put aside to building the oven as I needed 3 days within a week when I was free - I settled on the May bank holiday weekend as the perfect time due to the glorious weather and some keen volunteers.
My first job was to destroy our current oven. The oven had slowly been degrading in the rain due to the fact the parachute had been down for a vast majority of the winter while tree surgery work took place.
Old Pizza Oven
Luckily on the first day Stuart who had built the first oven returned from National Trust Woolacombe to help me out for the day.
The first stage after levelling our base was to build a sand dome. This was built on top of some previously laid fire bricks.
Once the sand dome had been created (this took four bags of red builders sand) you then need to lay wet newspaper on top of the dome. This is so that when you dig out the sand from under the clay layer you know when to stop digging!
Now is the time to get your feet muddy, we did a mixture of two parts sand to one part clay. We laid out a piece of tarpaulin and added our mixture on top and then slowly added water and paddled the mixture with our feet in till it was the right consistency.
It is good at this point to have lots of helpers to speed the process up. Once the mixture was as desired, you then start to make 'bricks' out of the clay and build up around the sand dome. The way I judged the mixture was to create a ball of clay and drop it down and if it held its shape then it was the right consistency.
Building up our first layer
Once the dome is completed it must be left to dry out a little - I left ours over night.
The next day I returned to add on an insulating layer, this is the same ratio of sand and clay but with straw added in for insulation and here I am enjoying getting messy again.
Just before I added the insulating layer on I cut out the door and the chimney - I found the correct calculations for the door height and width online.
Once I was happy that the door was correct I started to add the next layer on - using the same method as before by creating them into bricks and building the pizza oven up.
Once the second layer was complete; this also had a days drying time before I came back to do the third and final layer. I put the third and final layer on with a sand and clay mix. I added some detail to my final layer to create a mystery creature.
All we now have to do is start the drying out process by lighting a very small fire within the oven and slowly drying out the clay. I will try and light a fire in the oven everyday for a week and slowly build the fire's size up each time. By being patient I hope to make sure I do not create any cracks and slowly prepare it for a busy summer season of pizza cooking for our visiting school groups and our Wild Wednesday and Fun Fridays sessions.
Having had my first experience of building a pizza oven I am now inspired to build myself one at home.
Please feel free to ask any questions if you also would like to have a go, I am happy to give you more detail.
Holly Purdey
Ranger
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