often decorated with horses heads. At night an iron grid was pulled over the fire to prevent sparks, a practice known by the English term curfew. Well-to-do families had a candle arch (Schwibbogen) of masonry instead of a wooden frame. Smoke escaped through an opening in the roof on the gable, the Uhlenloch (also Eulenloch, literally: "owl hole"). The open fireplace meant that such buildings were considered as a particular fire risk by early fire insurance firms. The open fire also provided some heat to the stalls and living quarters of the Hallenhaus. In this way, hay stored in the loft could be dried out and protected from vermin by the smoke. When the farmer's family and farm hands gathered for meal times, the best places were between the fireplace and the rooms. Because there was no partition between Diele and loft, winter temperatures in the Flett never rose above 12 °C. A subsequent improvement was the extraction of smoke through a flue. Still later, a proper hearth would be added with a stone chimney. This made cooking easier and meant that the house was now free of smoke. On the down side, the hearth was no longer really a source of light and there was less energy for heating the house. Later still, one of the larger rooms would be built as a parlour with a separate stove heated from the Diele. When the division of rooms was fundamentally changed in the 19th century, a separate kitchen was established in the living accommodation at the back of the farmhouse. So the farmhouse, which had been divided longitudinally for such a long time, now had its different functions arranged transversely across the building. (*) Bread was baked outside the farmhouse Hauses in an earth or stone oven. In northwest Germany this only had one chamber. It was first heated, then the embers were raked out and the loaves pushed inside, in order to be baked by the heat stored in the sides of the oven. Living quarters Originally there were only open living areas at the back of the farmhouse on both sides of the fireplace. Here there were tables, chairs and wall beds and, of course, open contact with the animals. Not until after the Thirty Years War when the demand for living comfort grew, were separate rooms built at the back of the farmhouse, each the length of