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Researching the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
  Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada

DOMESTIC BUILDING CONSTRUCTION 
AT THE FORTRESS OF LOUISBOURG, 1713 - 1758

By

Eric Krause

1996 Draft Report

(Fortress of Louisbourg
Report Number H G 10)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

INTERIOR OVENS AND POTAGERS - CONSTRUCTION

Kitchen fireplace construction sometimes included bake ovens and/or potagers for keeping food warm. They were built only in a few of Louisbourg's better homes, however. The kitchen of the engineer's Block One residence had a potager but not an interior oven.

Ovens were built within and at the rear of fireplaces on occasion. Ovens also appeared in the sides of fireplaces or were independent of them but still under their hoods. Some were also not of original construction, having been added at a later date: within an existing fireplace in the case of Nicolas Dharmes; beside a kitchen fireplace in the case of the governor of Louisbourg, then occupying the engineer's Block One residence. The governor oven, for pastry, cost 78 livres 15 sols, was half rubblestone and half brick, and, like other ovens in the town, its construction required iron relieving arches and doors.

The engineer's house in Block One had a potager but not an oven until one was added in 1749. In contrast, the residence of the commissaire-ordonnateur had an oven but not a potager. One was proposed in 1739 however.

A potager was essentially a low rectangular masonry structure, perhaps 4 to 5 pieds long by 2 1/2 to 3 pieds wide, whose top surface featured two or three round or oblong holes, into which metal heating stands with pull-rings were placed. The masonry was either rubblestone or brick, bonded with a lime and sand mortar. Flat and/or bar iron and iron relieving arches helped in the support of the masonry.

A potager had no flue of its own to vent toxic fumes, and so required the use of either a fireplace hood or a nearby window. Poor circulation and rising fumes might also provide the reason for installing ceiling boards above potagers in the governor's and engineer's kitchens.