Torside Sherds & Walls

June 4, 2025June 14, 2025 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

What ho, what ho, what ho!

Well, this last month or so has been splendid in terms of weather, what? And indeed much has been done outside – archaeology and Where/When stuff.

Anyway… pottery as promised!

So… Master CG has taken up Windsurfing, which is to be applauded. Like a fish to water you might say, and he’s quite good, apparently (the instructors seem to be very pleased). This means that for a few hours at a weekend, myself and Mrs CG get to relax at the wonderful Glossop Sailing Club (who I cannot recommend highly enough – they are simply amazing), and in the neighbourhood of the wonderful Torside Reservoir in the Longdendale Valley, surrounded by the glacial formed hills; it’s truly a wonderful landscape.

Torside Reservoir is the fourth, and largest, in the Longdendale Chain of reservoirs which flooded this part of the valley in 1864. It is named after Torside Farm, first mentioned in the baptism of Alycia Hadfield in All Saint’s, Glossop, on 16th July 1621. Now whilst this may be the first mention, for two reasons I had a feeling the farm would be older: firstly, Alycia clearly had parents who didn’t just pop into existence in 1621. And secondly, if a place is good for farming in the 17th century, it would have been good in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries.

Torside Farm on 1882 OS map, borrowed from the National Library of Scotland website

Interestingly, this first mention in the parish register was actually written as “Thorsett” which, like many others in those pages, is a remarkable fixed record of the local dialect and pronunciation of the 17th century; the clerk asks “where do you live” and the answer from the parent is “Thorsett”, which is then written precisely as said, in clipped northern tones. Even as late as the 19th century, spellings of names and places is not fixed, and confusingly there is often quite a range of spellings for a single farm. Alas, the farm seems to have been demolished by the 1960’s, probably by the water board, and where it stood is now the carpark and public toilets.

Now, knowing this, and whilst young CG was floundering in the somewhat chilly waters, I went for a wander with the hope of finding something interesting and ceramic with which to entertain you wonderful people. Along the edge of the water, and up to the road I walked; I didn’t know what I was looking for as such, more a vague sense that something would be there, this close to an early 17th century farmhouse. And lo! What wonders did appear…

Firstly, I noticed two long walls amidst the general stony foreshore. Made from large boulders that would have, at one time, been plentiful in the fields; they were a convenient source of stone, as well as clearing the fields allowing them to be ploughed effectively.

A 30cm ruler in the foreground as a scale: I am professional… just on a budget!

Torside Reservoir, Longdendale: valley, pylons, windsurfing Master CG (and others) in full view… along with a mysterious wall running into the distance.

They would originally have stood higher, with this being the foundation course, and the size of the stones, combined with the lack of any map evidence, suggests an early, possibly medieval, date. There is a rough guide to dating walls in this area and hereabouts:

Taken from John Barnatt and Ken Smith’s highly recommended The Peak District: Landscapes Through Time. It’s based on data from Roystone Grange, and whilst it might be over simplistic, it does illustrate how walls changed over time.

It is a rough guide, and isn’t probably applicable everywhere, but it does serve to show differences in how walls were built. I honestly don’t know what these are, but I’m presuming field boundaries for a long lost field system. There are medieval field walls in Tintwistle, and they do look like this, but equally I have seen field clearance walls that date to the Bronze Age that look similar. The following is a rough map and rough measurements – maybe I should go back and really survey the walls properly… anyone fancy helping me?

But enough about the walls, “show us the good stuff… the pottery!” you shout (all except Mr Shouty-Outy, who shouted that he would apparently rather see my bottom…). Well here it is. The pottery that is, not my bottom.

All this was found on the surface, and it tells a very interesting story, but there are some genuinely important bits here. First up, we have a sherd of Manganese Glazed pottery.

Early 18th century in date – it stops being made around 1750 – this stuff is fairly commonly found on sites of this date, and probably come from a jug or mug. I explored this stuff here.

Other bits of Manganese Glazed include these 4 rim sherds from cups and mugs.

Clockwise from top left: an open bowl measuring 16cm, a cup of 10cm, another cup of 10cm, and another measuring 12cm. Lovely stuff.

Next up, some slipware.

On the left, a chunky sherd probably from a large jug or similar. On the right we have the rim from a large platter (it has a rim diameter of 30cm); the piecrust edge is hugely characteristic and immediately recognisable (again, I explore it in this article):

The glazed interior didn’t quite make it to the rim, and would have created a striking image: this would have been an impressive vessel when it was whole.

The middle sherd is Staffordshire Slipware, with a Dark on Light decoration. The reddish slip laid over the light background turns much darker when covered in the lead-based glaze. In this case it seems to be giving some form of geometric design – you can see the grooves where the slip was laid, but which has fallen away – the pottery is not particularly hardwearing, and the slip is often found to have delaminated from the body.

Wonderful stuff… you can just make out the linear design in the clay in this awful photo.

This is from the base of the vessel – probably a large platter used for presenting food on the table, and from which all the family would have taken their own share. Turning it over, you can see lots of interesting marks made during the manufacturing process.

When made, the pots are pressed into a mould until they are ‘leather’ hard – that is, hard enough to retain their shape, but not quite fully dry. What we can see on the base are the scars of manufacturing. There are numerous lines scraped into the clay, suggestive of tools used to remove the pot from the mould, or even string. There is also a small ball of clay lodged within the base – this would have been dry and sitting in the mould when the wet clay was placed in it, and when removed it became part of the base. The small holes around it suggest that there were others that didn’t become attached. I love this… it’s almost the secret side of pottery – whilst most people look at the decoration and say “oooh”, let’s instead flip it over and see what else it can tell us.

Next up, we have some Nottingham Stoneware:

I explored this wonderful stuff back in the first instalment of the Rough Guide to Pottery so I won’t discuss it here, but it dates to the 18th century, which is a good date for us. You can see the ‘orange peel’ surface made by using a salt glaze in this sherd:

And on this sherd interior, you can see the horizontal smoothing lines.

I think 2 of the sherds come from jugs or bowls, whilst the base sherd on the left has a diameter of 7cm, so it might have come from a squat round-bellied tankard.

Slightly later than all this is a beautiful sherd of Industrial Slipware:

It’s a lovely fragment of a sugar bowl type thing, with a wide mouth and straight sides. I like how the decoration gently mirrors the environment it was found in – very suggestive of water and sky.

For me, though, the absolute gem of a find was this fragment of a large Cistercian Ware jug.

Dating to the earlier 16th century (1550, perhaps), this is quite special in that it not only pushes back the date of Torside Farm, it is also not something that is commonly encountered. The surface is wonderful in a deep black glaze, and the fabric is textbook purple and hard, with the classic ‘salt and pepper’ inclusions.

The purple colour is on the bottom, the darker grey colour in the fabric is on the inside of the jug, and is caused by the pot being fired in a reduced oxygen environment – essentially, a lack of oxygen during the firing as air couldn’t get into the jug interior properly.

It would have originaly looked something like this:

Image is lovingly stolen from the University of Leicester Archaeological Service’s Facebook page – here

Genuinely, this sherd is, I think, something significant and had me all of a quiver when I found it. I had to have a bracer or two, and thankfully I was soon back to my normal stiff upper lipped-ness.

I also found some clay pipe stems here and there amongst the stones; all fairly standard and Victorian with the remarkable exception of this wonderful fragment.

The longer I look at it, the more it looks like it has two eyes, a nose… is singing to me!

It is chunky, being some 10mm thick, but crucially it is a large bore – the hole through the middle is 4mm – which is unusually large, and twice (or more) the width of a Victorian bore (sigh… yes thankyou Mr Shouty-Outy, calling me an ‘unusually large bore‘ says more about you than it does me). All of this means that the stem is early; early 17th century early… probably the same date as the earliest reference to the farm in 1621. It’s wonderful to imagine Alycia’s father sitting and smoking a nervous pipe in front of the fire, listening to the cries of his newborn daughter upstairs, and who knows… this could be the pipe. I love this, genuinely… it makes it real.

I also found a fragment of stone roof tile with the peg hole intact…

A nice shot, that! This must have come from the house or outbuilding, possibly as part of its demolition or perhaps during the course of its natural life.

Slightly older… glacial erratics – bits of stone that are not part of the local geology, which in out case is Millstone Grit and coarse sandstone:

Another awful photo – I will get a proper camera soon, honestly.

I talked a little about glacial erratics here, but essentially they are bits of stone that have been picked up from all points north of here by glaciers moving south during the last ice age (granite, and large bits of quartzite, for example). The movement of these huge structures made of ice, mud, and stone, actually carved out the Longdendale Valley, and when they began to melt roughly 25,000 years ago, they dropped all this odd material. Glacial sand and clay can be found all over the Glossop area (my own house sits on glacial clay), but it is very prevalent in Longdendale. The types of stone, and indeed origin of these, I haven’t gone into; I am not a geologist, but perhaps I should write an article on them?

In addition to all that, I found a rather nice segment of hand forged, very worn, iron chain.

I have no idea of the age of it, but it’s certainly at least Victorian… and is very cool!

As I say, the first mention we have of the farmhouse at Torside is 1621, but I am fairly confident that the Cistercian Ware jug is earlier, and perhaps by as much as 150 years – which is very interesting and may point to an earlier incarnation of the farm in the area… which makes sense. The past is indeed all around us, and often at our feet… and it is always well worth having a look.

So then, in other news (and also having a look at), the new edition of Where/When has just come from the printers: No.6 – Old Lanes to Old Glossop.

This one is a Wander along the medieval main route between Simmondley and (Old) Glossop, now fossilised into footpaths and odd tracks between buildings. Filled with all manner of archaeological goodness and the usual nerdiness, with a pinch of psychedelia and a heavy hit of psychogeography. Put simply it’s a bloody good walk that goes between The Hare and Hounds and The Wheatsheaf, so what’s not to love?

Contact me here, buy it in the website store, buy it from my Etsy store, the Ko-Fi store, stop me in the street and say “what ho!”, or pop into Dark Peak Books on High Street West, Glossop and grab a copy. It is selling fast… worryingly fast, to be honest!

Right, I think that’s all for the archaeology this month… more soon, obviously. Perhaps more pottery; I’d like to finally wrap up the Rough Guide to Pottery – its unfinished status is frankly bothering my diverse and somewhat spicy mind, and I’d like to be able to wake up not screaming once in a while! Watch this space.

In the meantime, as always – and I do honestly mean it – look after yourselves and each other. This world is not always kind, so let’s – even you Mr Shouty-Outy – try and be kind instead. Until then, I remain, your humble servant.

TCG

Archaeology · Longdendale · Pottery

Valehouse Pot

June 30, 2021July 5, 2021 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

What ho, kind and gentle folk of the blog reading world!

Sooooo, today is back to some sense of normality in that I am looking at pottery.
“Woo-hoo!” I hear you cry.
Well alright, some of you cried “woo-hoo!“.
Well alright, not that many of you if I’m honest. Certainly not enough of you.
Well tough… it’s my blog, and I like pottery, so we’re doing pottery. Now pay attention, I may ask questions.

Actually, this stuff is interesting in two ways. Firstly, as bits of archaeology. And secondly, I didn’t find them! No, that dubious honour rests with my friend and fellow delver and obsessive, Charles Winford Lodge (actually not his real name, but then you are reading a blog written by a man who has been dead for well over 100 years, so it’s probably best not to start asking too many questions at this point). He goes by @2hrTV on Twitter, and usually has something interesting to say on the subject of the history of Glossop and area. Usually… I mean, I can’t promise.

Anyway, the conversation – pretty normal for us – went along the lines of:
Him – “Years ago I found some pottery at Valehouse Reservoir. I’ve just re-found it in the house… want to see it?“
Me – “Absolutely, my good man… lead on.”

Out it comes (in a plastic doughnut box from Tesco – price £1.10 – bear in mind this is the man who once gave me some pottery in a camembert box, so doughnuts are a step up). Most of them are fairly standard Victorian sherds, but one or two made me sit up. Now, the sherds had not been washed (tut! tut!), and so I volunteered to take them, clean them, and blog about them. Which is how I ended up washing up someone else’s broken old rubbish. Please, no one tell Mrs Hamnett… it might not end well. For any of us.
However, I think the risk was worth it.

Valehouse is an interesting place; now just the name of a reservoir in the Longdendale Valley, below the Woodhead Road, it was once a village that in its prime, and prior to its flooding, had roughly 600 residents in 100 cottages with a number of shops, a school, and other amenities. Samuel Oldknow built the first mill here in 1775 – the first to harness the power of the Etherow – and it is after this point, and largely in the early 19th century, when the mills were substantially expanded, that the majority of houses were built to house the mill workers. The valley was flooded in 1869 to provide Manchester with water, and the mills and houses were all submerged. I also have a personal connection with the village in that my great great great grandfather, Benjamin Livesey, was born there in 1824.

Valehouse prior to the 1869 flooding. Note the large mill buildings, and the many houses.

Valehouse as it was in 1899, and indeed still. Note the large quantity of water and lack of houses.

So then, the pottery. It was recovered during a drought a few years ago, and from the area around the viewing platform on the north side of the reservoir. Having studied the sherds, it’s clear they can be split into two broad chronological groups – early 18th century and late 19th century – which probably represent two different origins. I’ll discuss the latest first, before looking at the oldest, and arguably more interesting.

Not, at first glance, particularly inspiring.

1 – A Victorian earthenware jar or jug, vertical ridged decoration, with a body diameter of 9cm, and glazed in a lovely cobalt blue colour. Nothing special, but quite fancy.

2 – Simple sherd of blue and white earthenware, with the bog standard transfer print.

3 – Thick base to a Late Victorian Codd Bottle. It has ‘TON-U-LYNE’ embossed on one side, and a little research gives us ‘R.A. Barrett & Co.’ of Ashton-Under-Lyne. They manufactured soft drinks and mineral water, and were particularly noted for their ginger beer. Their factory still stands in Dean Street, Ashton.

A complete Barrett & Co. Codd bottle, and the factory as it stands today. The bottle fragment above would have been made in this factory.

4 – Fragment of bottle, probably Victorian mineral water or beer.

5 – Another fragment of green glass – probably Victorian, as it is quite thin walled, but it does contain large numbers of bubbles, suggesting perhaps an earlier date.

6 – A large, thick walled, earthenware sherd, perhaps part of a lid to a very large “Brown Betty” teapot – it is certainly the right colour for this, and curves the right way. The surface colour is a mottled brown, and is a type that deliberately recalls the earlier, 18th century, manganese ware. Interestingly, you can see how this effect is achieved by looking at the break. Two colours of clay – one dark reddish brown and one a creamy buff – are loosely mixed, and the clay is shaped into the mould. It is first fired, then a clear or slightly yellow glaze applied, followed by a second higher temperature firing. Where the cream buff forms the surface, it is a yellow or golden brown, and where the reddish clay forms the surface, it produces a dark rich brown, together forming the mottled effect. I quite like it, but much prefer the original 17th century stuff.

The appetising looking Victorian mottled ware sherd. You can see how the different coloured clay affects the surface colour

Right, let’s move onto the arguably more interesting stuff.

This material dates from roughly the early 18th century – let’s say 1700 – 1750… ish.

1 – Large and chunky strap handle probably of Nottingham Stoneware, and probably from a large jug or flagon. It measures 4.5cm wide, and is typical of its type. Stoneware is fired to a very high temperature, melting – or vitrifying – the clay, making it into a very hard and almost metallic pottery. It has a dark grey fabric, with a brown glazed surface which is very shiny – the result of adding iron to the glaze. Interestingly, this is not as fine or well made as the earliest material here, and shows some similarities with the later Derbyshire Stoneware, so it might be the somewhere in late 18th century.

2 – Base to a stoneware jug or jar, with a diameter of 10cm. This too has characteristics of both earlier Nottingham Stoneware and the later Derbyshire type – the glaze for example, is less lustrous than early sherds, but it has the classic grooved decoration running around the base. The underside shows wear suggestive of use and re-use over time. On balance, I’m going to say it is early, safe in the knowledge that no one is going to double check (as he scurries away and hides it).

3 – Lovely Nottingham Stoneware bowl, with a rim diameter of 13cm, and a slightly flaring out-turned rim. It’s thin walled, with a grey uniform fabric that was slipped in white before glazing. The surface glaze is a lovely melted chocolate colour, very lustrous and almost metallic looking, and is very characteristic, as is the horizontal grooved decoration on the exterior, and glaze drip marks on the interior. I liked this so much that a drew it using the archaeological method – essentially looking at the whole vessel in profile, and removing a quarter to allow both the interior and exterior to be shown.

The profile of the sherd is shown on the left, coloured in black – this shows the shape of the pot. The interior of the pot is shown next, with the wavy lines where the glaze dripped. Then the exterior of the vessel is shown next to that. I might do a post about this type of drawing, as I’d like to do more. It’s been a while since I did this last, though.

4 – This is a bit of an odd one. Stoneware, but potentially quite early. Certainly it fits with the 18th century stuff, but the surface is off – it looks like orange peel, dimpled all over with a salt glaze, and reminds me of the earlier 18th and even 17th century German stonewares that were imported in huge quantities. Whatever it is, it’s a huge rounded or pot bellied vessel with a diameter of roughly 26cm, despite being very thin walled. It is also a closed vessel, being glazed on the exterior only, so perhaps some form of small barrel or large bottle?

5 – Nottingham Stoneware – flask or bottle type. The body, shoulder, and beginning of the neck only, it has a body diameter of 18cm, so quite large despite being very thin walled. It has a double band of horizontal incised decoration which is showing the under slip where the glaze is thinnest. Like No.3, the glaze is lustrous and a melted chocolate in colour.

6. Finally, we have the star of the show – a rim fragment of a Staffordshire Slipware platter or large plate. This stuff is very diagnostic, and gives a clear date of between 1650 and 1750, with this sherd from 1700ish.

Slipware like this is quite good quality, and a step up from the wood or plain wares that the average man or woman would eat from – or rather take from, as this would be a communal dish that everyone would eat from. Often broadly rectangular (as this is, I think), they are shallow, and would be completely covered in this linear banded decoration of yellow and dark brown. It’s quite striking, and would be a blast of colour in a world that was otherwise quite drab, particularly in winter. I still can’t work out whether I love or hate this stuff! Here is a complete example:

A complete example of migraine inducing 18th century pottery.

The process of decorating the pot went as follows: the pot is first moulded, then fired at a low temperature. The interior, and only the interior, is covered in a red slip, then overlaid with a white slip, and a tool is then dragged through this white slip, revealing the red underneath. The whole interior is then covered in a clear glaze and fired, transforming the colours to dark brown on the red, and honey yellow on the white. The whole process can be seen if we look at the break on the sherd:

Right – some of the red slip splashed on the exterior of the sherd, it remains red because it hasn’t reacted with the glaze. Left – all there elements can be seen in the break: the red and white slips, the tool that scraped away the white slip, and the glaze that overlays the lot.

So what does all this mean, then?

Because the valley was flooded to create Valehouse Reservoir, it gives us a cut off point (a terminus ante quem in archaeological terms – essentially the latest time an event could have happened) – any buildings and such there must have been built before this point. However, that is not strictly true with portable objects, especially those found near the edge of the water – the reservoir was almost immediately a picnic and pleasure spot, and plates get broken, bottles get launched into the water, etc. So we can suggest tentatively that although some of the material will likely be from the village before it was drowned, most of the Victorian material, and in particular the Codd Bottle, was deposited after the reservoir was filled.

The same cannot be said for the earlier material, and therefore there was clearly some form of settlement here prior to the Victorian period, as no one in their right mind is going to carry around 150 year old pottery to throw in a reservoir. Alright, I might… but most people don’t. So this material has to be from an 18th century dump of some form… but from where. Studying a map of Vale House prior to flooding shows clearly the mill complex and all the houses.

I love playing around with Microsoft Paint!

Circled in red is the rough location of where the pottery was found. But here, in the green triangle, is an odd looking group of buildings. Set apart and in its own land, it looks like the standard farming hamlet for this area, made up of the farm building, outbuildings, and farm worker’s cottages. And in Bagshaw’s Directory for Cheshire dated 1850, we read of Joseph Roe, Farmer, Vale House Farm. Even the name ‘Vale House’ suggests a house of some importance. I wonder if, as so often happens, the local big house or manor house became less important over time and ended up as simply Vale House Farm. If so, then this might explain the 17th – 18th century pottery, and given that it’s made up of several different domestic vessels, suggests strongly that this is the midden, or rubbish dump, associated with the farmhouse. All we have to do now is wait for another drought and we can see what else is buried there.

Valehouse Reservoir today. Somewhere in the middle of that photograph, below the water, lies the remains of a 17th century farmhouse.

Hope you enjoyed this weeks romp around with pottery… let me know what you think, anything at all, even to tell me I’m wrong about the stoneware base (I’m not… it’s my site, and therefore I’m always right!). Also, if you have any pottery that you want me to look at… just don’t tell Mrs Hamnett.

Next month, we have a very interesting tale to tell… more of that later. For now, take care of yourselves and others, and until then, I remain.

Your humble servant,