On June 18th, one day after the flood, we decided to go ahead with firing the furnace, and to light the lehr. This first firing was meant to help to dry out the furnace and lehr, so temperatures were kept low - at only a few hundred degrees centigrade through the day (although we did not use a thermocouple to measure the temperature).

During this firing we left the roof off for most of the day to help the drying process and to help to keep the temperatures low. We replaced it in the late afternoon, about two hours before we let the fire die down.

The next day we fired the furnace in earnest, but did not fire the lehr.

For this firing we used a thermocouple. Over the course of six hours we coaxed the furnace up to 1093°C, but could not quite reach 1100°C (at Stourbridge in 2019 we achieved a top temperature of 1125°C).

One possible reason for this is that some of the heat energy was taken up with drying the firepit, but more likely was that, even with a makeshift firebar, we could not introduce enough air to burn the charcoal, so decreasing the efficiency of the fire.

Despite this, the firing was a success. It showed that the furnace was still capable of high temperatures with no obvious structural problems and that the ceramic tubes were able to withstand the rise and fall in temperature with no perceived ill effects.

This firing also fired the new patches and gap fillers on the interior walls, and locked the various pot supports in place. The daub in the firepit under the furnace also fired to produce a very strong tile and clay structure.

During this firing we did not put any pots in the furnace. This meant that the exit of the flames and waste gases was not impeded, so the fire drew well and, in contrast to Firings Three and Four, there was no burnback.