Stones discovered in the Yorkshire Dales in 1896, and originally thought to be part of a corn drying kiln, have been reuncovered, prompting investigators to hypothesize that they were actually part of a communal bread oven.

Dr Johnson said a circle of stones on the site was definitely either a hearth or the base of an oven because the stones had been subjected to temperatures high enough to split most of them in two.

A flue ran under the hearth and under the floor of the building, distributing hot air from there to the rest of the structure.

“What is not obvious is what it had been used for,” he said.

“Corn drying seems out of the question, though, because that process needed low temperatures and gentle heat and the fire was always kept away from the drying floor.

“The team is now currently toying with the idea that it might have been a communal bread oven. Hartlington was part of the ancient parish of Burnsall and it is known that there was such an oven within the parish, but nobody knows where it was.

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A staple of mine over Easter is the delicious hot cross bun. Now one grandmother has come forward with the world’s oldest: a 189-year-old hot cross bun baked on Good Friday, 1821.

Nancy Titman, 91, was given the incredible 189-year-old bun when her mum died and amazingly it shows no traces of mould.

The bun, which was made the same year as Napoleon died, George IV was crowned king and poet John Keats passed away has been in her family for generations.

“It’s a relic which has been passed down through the family. My mum said our ancestors worked in a baker’s shop and they believed buns baked on Good Friday didn’t go mouldy,” said Nancy.

“It is rock hard and the currants have disintegrated but you can tell it’s a hot cross bun and you can still see the shape of the cross.”

The bun, which has the date March 1821 on its base, was made by Nancy’s great, great, great grandfather, William Skinner, who owned a bakery in London.

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A teacher in England has baked bread using ancient grain developed by an archaeological botanist.

Mr Letts developed the grain in frustration at the modern types of wheat grown in the UK, which produce straw too short for use as roofing thatch. He believed using older varieties where you could get two products from the land was better for the environment.

He scoured gene banks and traditional farms across the world to track down tall varieties of wheat, like those grown in medieval times.

He said: “After so many years of struggling to research this and develop it, I think it’s catching on.”
The grain is being grown on farms at Faringdon and Wheatley, producing 1.3 tonnes of grain per acre plus the same weight in thatching straw.

He said: “I think the bread’s delicious and most people really like it.

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