Tuguegarao City’s horno has also been neglected and left deteriorating at a city barangay

If one visits the Cagayan Valley, one readily discovers the prevalent use of bricks as building materials of many Spanish colonial era structures. From churches to houses to government buildings. Its beautiful red hue gives it its own charm as one can see in the awe inspiring Tumauini Church in Isabela.

Of course, if there are bricks, it follows that there must also be kilns built to fire the molded clay. Although not built as many as other structures, I know of three that exists. The grandest and best known is the one found in Camalaniugan, which is still in good condition. The other two that I know of, which will be dealt in this and the next posts, in Tuguegarao City and Dupax del Sur, are both neglected and in ruins.

Barangay Bagumbayan is noted for the surviving kiln, or horno, in its vicinity. Located just beside the basketball court, it is in ruins, has been overgrown with vegetation and neglected. The bricks fired here might have been used to build the grand cathedral, the ermita and the beautiful cemetery arch and perimeter fence. It might also have supplied the bricks that built the other Spanish colonial era churches and buildings in the adjacent municipalities.

Alas, although it is a known heritage structure, the people of the barangay or the province doesn’t seem to care.

What are these? What was the use?

Another view of the horno

A section of the ruined structure