The Kiln

Above: Dora under construction in 2012

The kiln at Ridge Pottery, Dora, was built by Douglas Phillips, the designer of the kiln, and Paul Stubbs, potter, engineer and kiln builder, and first fired on the 29^th of January 2012. Dora got the name from the large number of doors in its construction – from the fire-boxes to the chimney lid.

Dora is Douglas’ design based on over 40 years of building and designing wood burning high firing pottery kilns. The core of it design was to have as efficient a kiln as possible in terms of labour, both in the packing, preparation and consumption of the wood fuel and the use of labour in the stoking of the kiln. These goals were achieved one, by designing a kiln that has as low a thermal mass as possible, two by keeping the design simple. A good number of details combine to contribute to the great efficiency of this kiln. The great Nigel Wood deemed Dora, when first fired, as “The worlds most efficient wood kiln”.

Above left: Spy hole flame in reduction, Above Middle: Dora’s chimney, opened at the start of firing, Above Right: A small fire is started in the firebox to thoroughly dry out pots overnight.

As of January 2025 Dora has been fired 63 times. The two chambers, the first being fired to cone 10, the second to cone 9 with the whole firing taking around 8.5 hours. All firings are of once fired/raw glazed pots. The second chamber being a smaller than the first, all adds up to 70 cubic feet (1982 litres), goes to about 1100C on the waste heat from the first chamber and then takes about 12 kilos of small wood to bend cone 9 in around 30 minutes.

The fireboxes are 2 meters long (so little or no cutting of wood) having 5 fire-bars. Dry pine, sawmill waste, is burnt up to 1000C then the kiln is stoked with green/wet hardwood. Side stoking is all hardwood. One person can quite comfortably fire this kiln alone. Each of the 2 fire-boxes have glass windows so the fire can be observed without repeatedly opening the fire-box doors.

Above left: Jennie tending to the early fire, above middle: Douglas stoking with hard woof after 1000c, above right: Seren, current chief stoker.

A few words from Douglas: “Over many years I has studied wood kilns and their firing in a number of different countries, these firings and the potters who built and fire these kilns have contributed much to my understanding of the development and working of kilns. Fred Olsen stands out in this respect.

Dora and her predecessors have been the vehicles which have passed on this knowledge to many other potters over the years. Many did a good job in helping build and fire these often experimental kilns and I owe them thanks.”