Friends… and Neighbours

December 21, 2023December 29, 2023 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

What ho you lovely people!

I trust you are all recovering from reading the mighty publishing phenomena that is Where/When Issue 1? Move aside JK Rowling… Harry Potter was good, but was it ‘Pottery’ enough? See what I did there? Pottery… Potter…

What? What do you mean “don’t give up the day job”? This is my day job! And you, sir, are frankly uncouth! Honestly, what do you mean there are “funnier types of fungal infection”?

If you haven’t bought a copy yet, go and grab one from Dark Peak Books, or from me, if you can track me down. Or even download a free copy (link above). A perfect stocking filler, even if I do say so myself. Oh, and plans for a second and third edition continue to form… watch this space. Or Twitter. Or Instagram. Or just get in contact!

Anyway, shameless self-promotion over with let’s get on with the show, so to speak.

So, I recently became aware of a group of wonderful people – The Friends of Whitfield Rec and Green Spaces (their Facebook page is here). They are a group of Whitfield residents who are helping with the day-to-day upkeep and improvement of Whitfield Recreation Ground and other green spaces (for example planters, and other bits of land that might otherwise be neglected). A wonderful idea; we who use it, help keep it usable rather than rely just on the council who, with the best will in the world, don’t always the time and resources, or the local connection, to do this. I’m a big and passionate believer in the phrase “be the change you want to see in the world” (a saying usually attributed to Ghandi), and this group is a great example of this in action.

This summer they planted a pile of… er… plants in the grass around Whitfield Wells, improving the look of the area and adding a little wildness – an excellent example of what they do. And a few weeks ago they organised and installed some good looking new benches at the Rec. giving me somewhere new to sit and ponder the world… and my own navel whilst Master C-G and assorted other Herberts run riot.

The eventual idea is to landscape mounds and hedges around them, creating a wonderful usable social space. But back to the present, and the realisation that one cannot make benches without breaking soil – or something – and my spidey-sense began to tingle… do I smell pottery?

I did indeed.

Most of the stuff I found was typical late Victorian and early 20th century tablewares. Not unexpected, and it is largely domestic rubbish, on wasteground, dating from a time when there was no rubbish disposal. Some of the more interesting bits in the above photo, then. Top row, second from right is a shallow bowl or plate with a rim diameter of c.18cm with a hand-painted red band running on the interior – a common motif in early 20th century pottery. Next to that is a fragment of a large rounded jar with a decorated out-turned rim (I should probably start explaining what I mean by all these terms… possibly). And next, a rolled rim from a brown stoneware cooking pot. Bottom row, second from left is a sherd of open pattern spongeware. Fourth from left is a sherd that has decoration hand-painted on the top of the glaze, and the two sherds on the far left are porcelain. As I say, fairly mundane.

However, some pieces were a bit more interesting.

First up, we have a fragment of a Pond’s Cream (or similar skin care product) jar.

It is made from milk glass – an opaque type of coloured glass – and is roughly square shape in plan, with rounded edges and large vertical grooves; it would have looked lovely when whole. It also has a screw top, which generally means it is early 20th century in date.

These three are quite nice, too.

Lovely stuff. And an ok photograph! I had so much trouble taking these – it was so dark even during the day that the pottery was showing out of focus.

Top left, a small plate of Shell Edged Ware, which my own guide suggests is mid Victorian. Bottom left is a hand painted tea cup of c.10cm diameter; it would have been quite lovely. Right is a sherd of Banded or Annular Industrial Slipware, with a rim diameter of c.10cm, and probably from a Late Victorian tankard (they are common in this design), and perhaps, we might speculate, from The Roebuck pub on Whitfield Cross.

Left is a lovely sherd of Spongeware – a flower from a much larger design. Right is the neck from a Brown Stoneware bottle or jar of some sort. The incised decoration on this sherd is very sharp, indicating that it came from something potentially very fine. Both Early Victorian at a guess, so perhaps heirlooms when they were thrown away, or indicating that there is earlier material in the ground below the Rec. – which would be unsurprising.

I love this next sherd – a ring foot from a larger open bowl or serving platter.

Unassuming, and a little boring at first glance

It looks boring, but is almost certainly early Victorian, and has seen some heavy use, perhaps indicating it too was an heirloom when it was broken and disposed of.

The wear on the ring foot is clearly visible – it has been moved about a lot – in and out of cast-iron ovens in particular – scraping off the glaze and wearing out the ceramic underneath. Also, note the blue tint to the pooled glaze, indicative of a Pearl Ware, and which was largely unused after about 1850. Knowing this sort of thing is the reason I’m a hit at so many parties… such is the burden of the sherd nerd!

Looking at the interior surface you can see many scratches – cut marks made by a knife, probably cutting up meat in the process of serving food. This vessel had seen lots of use before being tossed into what would become the Rec. I love it – the human touch.

Finally, there was this:

It may not look impressive… and to be fair it isn’t. It’s a piece of spent coal – or cinder – and it’s what is left over when you have burnt coal. But it is a hugely significant in that every house would have produced lots of this material, and it should really be seen as a marker of domestic life in the late 19th and early 20th century. I love it for that… not enough to keep it mind, but it is a lovely, if very common, little piece of social history that I wanted to share with you.

So my sincere thanks then to the Friends of Whitfield Rec and Green Spaces for inadvertently sponsoring this month’s post!

Whitfield Recreational Ground has an interesting history – I’m not going to go into it too much as I’m not sure I could do it justice in this article, although it does need doing. Briefly though, Robert Hamnett (the historian) notes that Wood Street – and presumably the whole area – used to be an open field. He states:

“When I first remembered it there was a disused brick yard in the centre, with numerous depressions, which after heavy rain became dangerous to children playing there; in fact there have been cases of children drowning there”.

The whole area was improved and landscaped by George Ollerenshaw in the late 19th and early 20th century. He built the houses on Wood Street, and donated the library building that once stood at the southern end of the park (now the toddler park). His monogrammed initials and date of 1902 are on the Wood Street entrance to the park.

The ‘G’ and ‘O’ monogram of George Ollerenshaw.

1902 – the year the park was opened. I love these, and this entrance – a real faded glory.

Obviously, over the years I have picked up a few bits and pieces from the Rec:

A selection of fairly mundane and entirely expected Victorian pottery.

On the left is a sherd of nice and finely incised Brown Stoneware, probably from a bottle, and possibly early Victorian, as later types are less precise and do away with the incised bits. The middle sherds – one on top of another – are bog-standard Blue and White transfer Printed Ware. The two bits on the right are Salt-Glazed Stoneware, and probably from a ginger beer bottle. Lovely stuff this (and the subject of a future Rough Guide). I also think I can just about make out a smudged fingerprint on the exterior from where the pot was moved whilst the glaze was still wet. Possibly.

Excitingly, we have this:

A clay pipe bowl fragment, with rather lovely fluted decoration – flat panel of gadrooning (don’t say we don’t learn you nuffink on this website… and yes, I didn’t know either, I only learned it accidentally by researching this pipe!). However, nice though it looks, it is roughly made; the seam, where both parts of the mould come together, is coarse and untrimmed, and the clay has been poorly formed in mould. This is mass production in the Victorian period.

And finally, just like the cinder piece above, we have a very mundane but quite important object… a piece of roof slate.

I mean to say… it’s not much to look at.

It really is mundane, but is quite informative. Slate is not local: Wales is it’s origin, and until the railways enabled the movement of relatively heavy fragile material like this, that’s where it would have stayed. Once the railways were established (c.1840’s onwards), it quickly became the roof material of choice – just as strong as local stone, but 20 times the weight. indeed, you can usually date the houses of Glossop to roughly pre- and post-1850 by the roof material: stone vs slate. This slate has a flat smooth edge (at the top in the photo) where it has been shaped, but other than that, it is utterly unremarkable, and it simply exists as a remnant of the 1000’s of houses that once stood very close by but which were pulled down during the rebuild of this area during the 1960’s. Indeed, the roof of the public library that stood here was also slate, so it might be part of that as I found it not 10 feet from where it once stood (underneath the toddler play area).

None of these finds have a context – they are all simply rubbish dumped here mostly when it was an open field and before it was transformed into a park. It’s interesting to ponder that for a moment. The Victorians were awful when it came to litter; everywhere they went they left a trail of pottery, glass, metal, and bone – rubbish all over. Now arguably, these are organic, and are not largely made from toxic oil-based plastics as much of our litter is, so not as ‘bad’. Nonetheless, it is safe to say the Victorians were absolute scumbags, and although some of it will have been picked up, there is still lots to be found. If groups like the Friends of Whitfield Rec and Green Spaces have their way and remove all the litter from these places – and I hope that they/we/you achieve this – then are they doing a future me out of a blog post or two? There may be no rubbish to mudlark/fieldlark and blog about! Unfortunately, the massive amount of plastic rubbish that seems to crop up everywhere you look would indicate that this is not the case, and in 200 years no doubt some sad geeky bloke will be publishing a monthly article on a website, and enthusiastically waxing lyrical about this piece of rubbish or that bit of bottle. Imagine…

Get in contact with the Friends via their Facebook page; help them out, give them ideas, give them time, resources… even a cheer. They really do deserve it for everything they are doing, and attempting to do (read a bit more about them and what they do here). Also, do something simple: pick up a piece of rubbish from the street and put it in the bin – every bit we do, helps the bigger picture. And the future me won’t hold it against you, honestly.

That’s all for now, and it only remains for me to wish you a very merry Christmas whatever you end up doing. Personally, I shall be basking in the glow of a fire with family, some cheese and a large glass of the stuff that cheers. So here’s a health to you all, and I hope you enjoy my favourite ‘modern’ Christmas song.

And/or my favourite more traditional song:

I’ll be back in the new year, but until then, and especially at this time of year, please look after yourselves and each other, but until then, merry Christmas (and a merry solstice).

I remain, your humble servant.

TCG

Archaeology · Pottery

4000 Holes in Glossop, Derbyshire*

November 16, 2023January 8, 2024 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

*well, one, actually… but it is rather an interesting one. And also, my apologies to The Beatles.

What ho! good folk of the blog reading sort, what ho!

Now, as you probably know (for the Bard says it so) some are born with pottery, some achieve pottery, and others have pottery thrust upon them… or something. I think I fall squarely into the latter camp, if by thrust you mean stumble across it, even if one isn’t looking for it.

And so it was the other day. I had dropped off young Master CG at a friend’s birthday party, and had taken the opportunity to saunter into town to pick up a few things (certainly nothing pottery related: lego, wine, and masking tape, I think it was… which gives yet another somewhat intimate peek into my life). I wandered down High Street, and wondered if it was too early for a glass of something cold and refreshing. Crossing the end of Market Street I looked left and idly noted that the road was closed… and then I noticed the ground had been dug up, with a good sized pile of spoil indicating that there was a hole.

Now, as an absolute rule, if an archaeologist sees a hole in the ground, they will peer into it. It’s so natural, so predictable, that it has become a sort of archaeological equivalent to the Masonic Handshake, and using it you can spot us a mile away. “I say! What’s that chap over there doing – peering into a hole?” they say. And comes the response “Oh that’s just old TCG, doing a spot of ‘hole peering’… he’s one of those archaeological types, don’t you know – curious fellows“. This is also why you never see large groups of archaeologists walking together; if they accidentally stumbled across some roadworks they could be there for hours, peering. From the outside it would look like a mass escape from some sort of specialised care home, the inmates muttering and stroking their beards, pointing at things that might, or might not, be there. And peering. People would get frightened, angry mobs would form, torches would be lit and pitchforks procured, the police would get involved… No, it’s safer we travel in ones and twos.

But I digress from the story.

“Hmmm“, I muttered, and my thought process went something like this:

“Oooh, a hole… I must have a peer.”

Looking down Market Street toward Philip Howard Road. The darker soil is the material dug out of the trench, the orangey stuff is to be put in the trench.

Are those setts? Nice!

Setts: shaped stones set into the ground to provide a hard wearing surface of the Victorian Market Street, but later overlain by tarmac.

Wait, look in the soil… is there any pottery?

Lurking here and there… flashes of white and other colours. Tantalising, exciting, wonderful!

Sometimes disguised, sometimes in plain sight. If you see one, you can guarantee more are lurking, hidden, waiting.

And so I did the only sane and rational thing I could do… I wandered over and did a spot of peering! And my word, what wonders were therein contained… chock full of goodies, it was. And yes, I realise that ‘goodies’ as used here is an entirely subjective word!

Let’s start with the Brown Salt-Glazed Stonewares:

At the top left, we have a bowl or cooking pot with a rolled rim and a pot belly with a rim diameter of c.14cm; if it wasn’t Stoneware, I’d be thinking that it was Roman! Next to that part of the base to a large cooking pot; you can see the wear on the base where it was put in and out of an oven many times over the years. Bottom left is a thin walled open vessel, and with a diameter of 10cm is probably a mug with a horizontal linear banded decoration. The shiny lead-based glaze is particularly noticeable here, as is the orange peel effect on the exterior, characteristic of a salt glaze. This is also clearly visible in this sherd (it took me a while to get the light right on this shot, so you’d better appreciate it!).

Lovely! The speckled salt glaze is very visible.

The sherd on the right is probably from a jar or similar cylindrical shape. That on the left is the base of a cooking pot of some form. The foot is 8cm in diameter, but it is pot-bellied, so is actually quite large. It’s also quite coarsely made, being thrown quickly on the wheel, and looking at the base you can see detritus from previously made vessels, and which have been fired onto this pot. You can also see the wear on the edges of the base where it was pushed in and out of a metal oven. Interestingly, you can also just about make out the circular marks made by the wire cutting the wet clay bowl from the potter’s wheel – a snapshot of the manufacturing process.

Then we have some Industrial Slipwares:

A selection of open vessels. Rims from two lovely bowls, both of 16cm in diameter, and probably from food bowl – soup or stew, perhaps. The one on the left has a striking spotted design, and on the right, a variegated type with a joggled earthworm decoration (see the Rough Guide to Pottery Part 3 for more on this). To the right we see some more sherds, these are probably from tankards (for example, the one top right with the dark brown band has a diameter of c.12cm, which is about right).

Blue and White Transfer Printed:

Surprisingly, there wasn’t much Blue and White Transfer Printed material here, but I only collected from the surface, with no digging (which makes me wonder what I missed… eek!). What there is is fairly standard, a few bits of Willow Pattern, including a small plate or saucer of c.16cm diameter, and other assorted bits. There is also a moulded rim from a Shell Edged plate or shallow bowl.

Some hand-painted Victorian sherds:

Surprisingly colourful, and quite garish.

Hand-painted pottery was quite popular, and can be quite attractive in an abstract way – the painting being done very quickly produces some wonderful designs. I have a feeling both of these come from larger jugs, or possibly vases, although the one on the right reminds me of some of the hand-painted designs you get on Spongeware vessels (see here). This stuff is the subject of a future Rough Guide, although there really isn’t much more to say than colourful designs on a refined white clay and glazed.

Here we have some Black Glazed sherds.

This stuff is interesting, and is going to get its own entry in the Rough Guide, too – perhaps next time (can anyone else hear screaming?) – so I’m not going to go into too much detail here. However, I will say these sherds come mainly from large thick-walled vessels, and specifically pancheons – huge deep bowls traditionally used for separating cream or proving bread. They are very coarsely slipped and glazed usually on the inside only, and typically have grooves on the interior, made by fingers during the shaping process. As I was peering I pulled out a sherd which has since proved to be my favourite ever example of this type – look at this beauty!

Massively chunky rim sherd from a large pancheon.

A rim sherd of a large pancheon measuring roughly 56cm in diameter – a monster! It has a lovely black glazed interior, with great drips running where it was splashed and placed upside down to empty and dry before firing. The exterior is something to behold, too:

Wonderful grooves running horizontally around the body, made with a comb of some sort and which left some of the flashing. And look at that handle! For some reason it rare to find handles (there’s usually two of them), but this one is perfect – you can even see the potter’s thumb mark where he has pressed it onto the body of the vessel.

The human touch – it’s easy to forget sometimes that every one of these vessels was made by a person.

And look at the profile, held up at the correct angle to allow us to see how steep the vessel would have been, and showing the thick heavy rim.

I love how monstrous this thing is… it’s truly fantastic! I’ll be waxing lyrical about this pot some more when we get to the Rough Guide.

And finally, this last one is a mystery sherd, by which I mean I don’t know what it is, exactly.

It’s shaped in a way that suggests it was a statuette, rather than a cup or bowl, and if I was a betting man (which I’m not), I’d say it was one of those pottery dogs the Victorians loved so much. Or did they? And here I’m going to share with you a passage from one of my all-time favourite books – Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome:

“That china dog that ornaments the bedroom of my furnished lodgings. It is a white dog. Its eyes blue. Its nose is a delicate red, with spots. Its head is painfully erect, its expression is amiability carried to the verge of imbecility. I do not admire it myself. Considered as a work of art, I may say it irritates me. Thoughtless friends jeer at it, and even my landlady herself has no admiration for it, and excuses its presence by the circumstance that her aunt gave it to her.

But in 200 years’ time it is more than probable that that dog will be dug up from somewhere or other, minus its legs, and with its tail broken, and will be sold for old china, and put in a glass cabinet. And people will pass it round, and admire it. They will be struck by the wonderful depth of the colour on the nose, and speculate as to how beautiful the bit of the tail that is lost no doubt was.”

I suspect that this is a fragment of that tail!

Finally, we have a fragment of a clay pipe bowl and a piece of stem.

Neither is particularly interesting as such, and I sometimes refer to clay pipes as the cigarette butt of the Victorian period – they were mass produced, smoked and thrown away – but they are always a joy to find. The slightly tatty looking organic object on the left of the photo is the remains of an oyster shell. These are quite a common find from the Victorian period, though perhaps less common away from the coast for obvious reasons. In fact, oysters were an important food source for many, sold pickled in vinegar and spices, or made into pie, and certainly by the time of the railways, they could be moved around the country in huge quantities to feed the hungry lower classes cheaply.

In terms of dating, the construction of the market hall and grounds, and subsequently Market Street, provides us with a lovely and quite solid Terminus Ante Quem – the latest point at which an event could have happened. Put simply, the pottery came from soil underneath the road surface of setts laid down when the road was put in – 1844 or thereabouts. It couldn’t have been deposited any later than that (the road surface prevents it) therefore all the pottery must date to 1844 or earlier. And from a sherd nerd’s perspective, I would agree with the archaeological method; there is nothing here that needs to be later that 1840. You can see the original sett covered road surface in this photo, with a few setts still in-situ. You can also make out the buried surface and the natural soil underneath.

There is a rough stratigraphy visible here…

To make it a bit clearer, let’s look at it side on – in section.

I mean… it’s not perfect, but it get’s the job done. Hope you can understand it.

If you look at the photo above, you can make out the tarmac layer on top of the stone setts left in-situ – this was what you drove on the last time you drove down Market Street, laid down probably in the 1960’s, and many times since. The stone setts are the original Victorian road surface. Below these, in a reddish brown in the diagram above, is the disturbed original ground surface, and it is from this that the pottery was taken. Below that (only not as clear cut and obvious in the photo) is the original undisturbed natural clayey soil laid down during the last ice age or so.

The origin of this material, and why it ended up there, cannot be proven, but we might hazard a guess. From 1838 onwards, the town hall was constructed, designed from the outset to incorporate shops and businesses into the complex. One of these was a pub – The Market Vaults – that stood on the corner of (what was to become) Market Street and High Street West (it later became The Newmarket, and is currently Boots Opticians).

The Market Vaults as it once was, and possibly the source of our pottery.

Well, technically, this front part was a grocery store, it was the back, facing into the market place that was the pub. And it was right next to this building that our hole was dug. It’s not in the realms of fantasy that broken pottery and rubbish would be thrown out of the back door of the pub onto the muddy wasteland – the area would have been a building site between roughly 1838 and 1844.

The original back door of the pub is flush with the larger pub building, hidden behind the later building work. Interestingly, I can see at least 4 phases of building at the rear of the pub – the large extension is not original, and belongs to the last building phase, also seemingly Victorian.

There are three things that reinforce this theory. Firstly, the pottery contains a large proportion of Industrial Slipware, a ware type particularly associated with pubs. Secondly, the oyster shell is a classic bar snack of the Victorian and earlier periods, cheap and cheerful (then, at least – now they are, well, bloody expensive and, quite frankly, inedible). Lastly, the condition of the pottery; it all has sharp edges and clean breaks, which tells me that it has not spent any time kicking around the soil, being trodden on, or moved around at all: it was simply dumped and never touched again until being paved over. And although in ‘History in a Pint Pot‘ (the history of Glossop’s pubs), David Field notes that the first mention of a pub here is in a newspaper of 1865, I think it highly likely that the grocery was open all year, and that the enterprising owner – Mr Edward Sykes – would sell beer round the back on market days.

Fast forward 180 years, and some dashing heroic archaeological type wanders over to a hole, has a peer and, well, here we all are. And here, we must turn once again to Three Men in a Boat. Later in the same page as above, J notes:

“The blue-and-white mugs of the present-day roadside inn will be hunted up, all cracked and chipped, and sold for their weight in gold, and rich people will use them for claret cups.“

If only he knew! And if only I could find one complete enough from which to drink claret!

So remember, always have a look into a hole… you honestly never know what you might find. But be quick and be bold, as before you know it all is returned to normal and the opportunity to explore a little of the past is gone…

Almost as if it never happened. One wonders what lies beneath our feet as we walk or drive here.

EDIT

I have just come across this rather wonderful article, written by the truly amazing Graham Hadfield, about the history of Market Street. The whole of Graham’s website – GJH.me.uk – is an absolute mine of Glossop history, and he really puts in the effort to investigate the history of the place. I don’t bang on enough about the other people who are unravelling the history of here, as I’m not the only one, but let me recommend this site.

Incidentally, as I was peering I heard shouting behind me, and bounding into view came my lovely neighbours (hello H & S!). Apparently, their conversation prior to this had gone along the lines of “look at that weirdo poking around that hole, what’s he doing? Oh, hang on… that’s TCG!”. It’s nice to be known… I think.

Righty-ho, I think that’s the lot for today. I’ve got places to go and things to do (mainly housework, to be honest, but there you go, such is the life of the dashing explorer). In all the recent rain, it is well worth keeping an eye on the ground to see what the pottery fairy has sprinkled about – let me know if it is anything good. Also, big news is coming… I think, but until then, look after yourselves and each other. And I remain.

Your humble servant,

TCG

Archaeology · Pottery

A Pulchritudinous* Pile of Pottery

August 21, 2023 Tim Campbell-Green1 Comment

*Guess who got a thesaurus in his Christmas stocking? Also, as an interesting aside, this question also shows you how long I have been working on this post – it made sense and was relevant when I wrote it in early January.

What ho, wonderful blog reading folk, what ho!

The search for pottery and other bits of archaeology never really stops, does it? I’m sure you all know what I mean (I meant for the rest of us, not you… we know you don’t like it!). I seem to spend my life looking down and around, especially in places I might encounter the stuff. Never digging, but simply looking… and finding. Honestly, it’s something that I’ve done all my life, and I am pleased to say that Master C-G has also caught the bug. As, also, have some of his school friends, who regularly seek me out in the playground with joyful looks on their faces to show me the ‘wonderful’ things they have found over the weekend (hello RR, RB & NB). These are distinctly unlike the looks on their parent’s faces who are not as impressed with the search for bits of old plates interrupting their Sunday walks, and then humping bags of the stuff around. Awfully sorry chaps.

I’ve recently found some nice bits and pieces (not just pottery – flint, metal work, and a potentially very interesting whetstone… which is a phrase not many people will have uttered) that I need to a) blog about, and b) inform the Finds Liaison Officer about, and not necessarily in that order. All joking aside for the moment, it is really important to inform the FLO if you find anything ‘interesting’. It might not be interesting in the end, but if it is then at least someone knows about it, and that can fill out the archaeology and history of an area, changing it significantly in some cases. Also, you might get something into the Portable Antiquities Scheme – the British Museum programme that records all finds made (currently containing 1,623,055 objects, and going up on a daily basis) – and end up on the website (it’s searchable, with hundreds of thousands of photos, and more information that you can shake a sherd at – honestly, if you have a spare minute or three, give it a search here… and whole hours of your life will simply disappear!).

Anyway, onto the pottery…

I’ve tried to choose the more interesting bits today – older sherds for example – rather than the plain white or Willow Pattern. As an aside, I have recently come to realise that I have entirely too much pottery. I know, I know… can such a state exist? is it possible? A few years ago, I would have said no, but as I cast a weary gaze around the splendour of CG Towers, my normally steely nerve begins to falter; a deep sense of foreboding swells inside me, a certain something-or-other happens to my voice, and a tremor appears in my hands. At this point I normally go for a lie down, or depending on the location of sun in relation to the yardarm, a snifter of the stuff that cheers. But I cannot escape the niggling thought that I have whole boxes filled with, well, quite frankly, boring bits of pottery… and if I’m saying it’s boring, you know it to be true! I might start returning it to where I found it, or adding it to Shelf Brook in Manor Park to give mudlarks there more things to find. Hmmmmm? What’s that you say? No… No thank you, Mr Shouty-Outy. I won’t be “sticking” it there, thank you very much.

Anyway, moving swiftly on from such unpleasantries… the first of the pottery.

This first batch comes from the same place I found the lead came (this article, here) at the top of Whitfield Avenue, and the pottery dates from largely the same date – early – mid 1700’s, give or take.

Now, even I have to admit that this is not the mosr inspiring collection of pottery, and it’s chief inportance lies in its age. No.7 is a sherd of a Manganese Glazed bowl or larger cup, and No.6 is a fragment of a black iron-rich glazed cup. The other sherds are similarly glazed, and from larger vessels – bowls or pancheons (No.2 in particular). No.4 is interesting, and is probably a little newer – perhaps 1800? The grey fabric is unusual, and it seems to come from a pedestal footed bowl, perhaps a sugar bowl?

The next group of bits is of a similar age and type – early-mid 18th century, and possibly a little earlier in two cases – and comes from the bottom of one of the tracks that run from Hague Street to Charlestown Road, the southernmost of the two.

No.7 is a fragment of a Nottingham Stoneware grooved handle from a tankard or similar – something like this, perhaps:

Not quite as fancy as this one, but along these lines, and you can see the grooved strap handle. Stolen, as usual without shame, from John Howard’s rather useful website.

No.5 is a truly wonderful flat base fragment of a Manganese Mottled Ware cup/mug type. Dating to roughly 1680-1710, the pale buff coloured clay tells me it was made in Staffordshire, and the base diameter of 6cm tells me it was a mug or similar small-ish vessel. It is very typical of it’s time, with a thick brownish manganese glaze somewhat slapdash-ly applied, and a chamfered base. Wonderful stuff.

Lovely chamfered edge – you can see where the potter has cut away the wet clay – the human element.

The original would have looked something like this:

I honestly love these things, and the glaze is lovely, the manganese melting in the heat of the kiln providing the streaking that is so attractive.

The above photographs are courtesy of the Chipstone Foundation, and their wonderful website which published pottery from the Talbot Hotel midden in Tetbury, Gloucestershire. It was full of pottery of this date (broadly 1670 – 1720), and is an invaluable resource – a snapshot of provincial utilitarian pottery of the time; nothing fancy, nice but basic, and exactly the sort of thing we would expect among the bourgeoning middle class of Glossop. The website is honestly well worth looking at, here.

Other bits include No.3, the base to a large black-glazed pancheon or open bowl with a base diameter of 15cm, give or take. No. 2 is a manganese glazed bowl, but interestingly the glaze has some away from the slipped surface underneath, allowing us a peek into how it was made. No. 4 is a similar sherd, but the glaze was applied in a slapdash manner, giving a drip effect decoration, and showing the slip underneath after it was fired, now a purple-ish colour. No.1 is obviously a sherd of 17th or early 18th century Staffordshire Slip Ware. It’s quite thick, so would be from a plate or platter, and it’s very nice.

The big question here is what is it doing there? The trackway seems to have been a later ‘version’ of the older one just to the north, perhaps replacing it when it became worn out, or when the Methodist chapel was built on Hague Street at the top in 1813 (certainly it remained a thoroughfare for some time, as it has a streetlight halfway down and a cast iron drain cover). But I wonder if the trackway is not related to the pottery, and it simply cuts through a midden or dump of a nearby house that no longer exists. To judge from the wills and deeds, Whitfield at the turn of the 18th century was thriving, so there must be plenty of houses here that we don’t know about, those that didn’t survive the ravages of time. Now, as people tend not to move rubbish very far, this suggests that this house was nearby, and whilst the two houses that sit at the end of the track now are Victorian in date, did they perhaps replace an earlier house? Whatever the answer is, I think this is a spot I’ll return to! Who’s with me?

Moving on

As I walk around, I always try and discover new paths and passageways to explore – the talk I gave recently in Chester (The Gold in Your Back Yard) was the result of just that – asking the question “what’s down there?”. In terms of psychogeography this is called a derive: a wander with no intention other than seeking situations, encounters, environments, finds, and exploration. This is a concept that I love. I may be a sturdy chap, and as tough as old nails Englishman (notwithstanding the ridiculous moustache), but there lies within me a somewhat far-out hippy (within certain clearly defined parameters – obviously I draw the line at naturism; an Englishman needs his trousers, by Jove! And besides, Glossop’s too bloody cold… one might die of indecent exposure). So when this next small group of material popped quite unexpectedly out of a disturbed patch of earth in the previously untrodden (by me) tiny path that runs between the western end of Kershaw Street and Wood Street (next to what was the Labour Club), I gave a quick “what ho!” and dove in.

My phone’s camera has recently decided to get blurry at the edges, which is extremely helpful when photographing small objects. Please accept my apologies.

There is nothing particularly exciting here, to be honest. Top sherd is a fragment of the ‘Willow Pattern’ blue and white transfer printed ware – pretty standard stuff, part of the edging around the main scene. Below that is a pearlware pedestal base to something small (the rim diameter is 6cm – a little large for an eggcup, so perhaps a sugar bowl?). And then there are the clay pipe stems – neither are especially interesting, but they illustrate a useful nugget of information. Compare them side by side:

I really need a manicure and some moisturiser.

Look at the holes – the bore size is different: the smaller has a diameter of 2mm, the larger bore on the right, 3mm (and whoever shouted out “you’re the biggest bore” – only you finds that sort of thing funny, you know… honestly, I don’t know why I bother sometimes). Earlier pipes normally have a larger bore size, but as the process of making clay pipes was refined, a smaller size wire was used. It is also often the case that the earlier pipes are thicker, too, for similar reasons, but caution should be urged here as it depends on where in the pipe stem you measure, as they often taper. it’s safer to use the bore size as a rough guide – the smaller here is 19th century, the larger is probably Georgian/18th century.

The next group I picked up in the field that contains Whitfield Cross – random molehills and on the path, and probably the result of nightsoiling.

That is truly an awful photograph. If anyone would like to donate a decent digital camera – or some time to teach me the art of photography – please do!

Again, nothing earth shattering: a Victorian clay pipe stem (a 2mm bore) which shows signs of having been next to something iron, the rust staining the white clay. A sherd of Industrial Slip decorated pottery, early Victorian in date, but looks older. And a tiny fragment of a decorated clay pipe bowl.

Impossible to make out what the decoration is, especially from that photograph! There are pellets around the bottom, and perhaps legs? So maybe figures, rather than a pattern. Who knows. And yes, I am the sort of person who glues tiny bits of pottery back together, thank you for noticing. I recommend UHU Yellow (the sherd nerd’s glue of choice); it’s quick setting, but not as strong as the much harsher superglue, which means it can be undone and re-set if needed. It also cleans up well at the join.

This next collection was found during a quick impromptu mudlark in Hurst Clough. It’s from a site above the dump that periodically washes out into the brook, so probably represents something else – farm rubbish from nearby Lower Jumble, perhaps.

Again, nothing particularly special (a theme is developing!), but a good selection of Victorian stuff.

Top row: A very nice whiteware pedestalled footed bowl, with very sharply defined edges lines (which might mean it was made on a lathe). It has vertical fluted decoration and a band of wavy lines, and was probably once very fancy, although it is now very grubby – the peat in the water staining it brown. Next we have 2 sherds of annular Industrial Slip Ware. The blue and white is a rounded bowl with a diameter of c.16cm. The brown one is likely to be Dendritic (the tree-like design), and probably early 19th century. Then we have a thin-walled sherd of brown stoneware – a bowl or similar. Bottom row: There is a large blue and white transfer printed Willow Pattern plate- part of a mountain and a bit of fence. Next to that is another sherd of a different Willow Pattern plate, this one has a slightly wonky looking and misaligned tree from the garden. Next, a rim from a large bowl (diameter c.18cm) of something hand painted, possibly a spongeware. Finally, there is a cobalt blue glass fragment. It’s thin walled and an irregular shape, so probably not a bottle, and more likely some sort of decorative vase. I’d like to melt it down and make my own spun glass beads at some stage, and in fact have been collecting random bits of coloured glass fragments for just such craft activities. It’s doable, but I need practice… like so many other things I’d like to try.

And to end with, a small selection from Manor Park – some bits and pieces from Shelf Brook and around the skate ramp area. The whole area of Manor Park seems to have been radically landscaped sometime in the 1930’s, and a lot of rubbish was used to fill in parts of it. As a consequence, there are lots of places dotted around where you can find all sorts of interesting late Victorian/early 20th century stuff. I know some of you also like to have a poke around here, so if you find anything interesting, let me know.

To start with, another clay pipe fragment:

Initially, I struggled to work out what the decoration might be, then it hit me – an “S” surrounded by a rope… Staffordshire’ and the knot. A quick google led me to this :

A Victorian (late) clay pipe decorated with the Staffordshire knot and letters ‘S’ & ‘K’ (Staffordshire Knot, perhaps?). It’s nice to see the whole thing, and who doesn’t love a clay pipe?

Beads!, people, beads!

I love beads so much but I never find the blighters – I seem to be bead-blind. Pottery I never miss – I can’t look around without seeing mountains of the stuff falling out of the ground, literally throwing itself at me even when I’m not looking. Beads? Nope, nary a sniff, and both of these were found by Mrs C-G who has the eyes of a hawk (you might say she is… beady-eyed! What? Never mind “badum-tish‘, that was comedy gold). Anyway, moving on… The white one on the left is a simple paste bead, the one on the right is a wound glass bead with a strange and lovely incandescent colouring.

I love marbles even more, though. So tactile, so wonderful, but also a real link to the human, to the person who owned them, and a path between the past and the present. Both are made of clay, and both are perfect, unlike this next one…

Bottom left – the sad remains of what was once a large clay marble. I gave a yell when I saw the poking through the mud “a dobber!” but alas, upon excavation, what I could see through the mud was all that there was left.

Also in the photograph, the tip of a slate pencil. I often find these, and the other day was idly wondering why it is that I only ever find the tips, never the stems. Then I realised – it’s a single stick of slate – if it gets broken, the end can be sharpened, and voila… a new pencil.

Top left is a lovely piece of hand painted pottery – a very fine and delicate abstract shape, with the decoration on the interior, meaning it was an open shape – a bowl or similar. Bottom middle is another tiny sherd of worm decorated Industrial Slip Ware. Bottom right is a sherd of White Stoneware, with a leaf moulded decoration, and dating to probably 1800 or so. This stuff is very fine and lovely, and I have a whole chapter of the Rough Guide to Pottery on this subject almost ready to go – I’ll finish it off and post it next time (can anyone else hear that groaning sound?).

Sticking with pottery, are these bits:

I like it when there is a picture or words.

Left is the top part of a flag, probably from a royal celebration cup or something similar, and right shows a 17th century style manor house or small hall. No idea about the actual subject, but it could be decorative or possibly as souvenir. The middle is the name of the maker and, helpfully, the pattern number. A quick Google search reveals that it belongs to something like this:

A J & G Meakin ‘Sunshine’ pattern plate, dating from around 1920 or 30. So there we go.

And staying with identifying marks from Manor Park:

A Tams Ware ‘Greystone’ pattern coffee cup, like this one:

Very Art Deco 1920’s style, and surprisingly not too tacky. I like the hand-painted ‘T’ on the base of the above sherd, put there by the painter – a little human touch.

These next three were a mystery for a long time; ceramic, tubular, and smooth, they seemed a little too big to be beads. Very strange, and quite common.

Then I watched a YouTube mudlarking video – Northern Mudlarks I think it was – and they mentioned that they are in fact old electrical insulators. I dug a little deeper, and the answer is the “knob and tube” wiring system… obviously. Now, ignoring the schoolboy humour (I may be just the right side of 50, but I’ll admit that raised a smile), this was a system of allowing houses to be wired with electricity from roughly the 1880’s to perhaps the 1930’s. Using these insulators, it ensured the poorly insulated wires didn’t come into contact with combustible material (like, for example, your floorboards!), and were held in place. Go ahead and follow the link to the Wikipedia page above, but honestly, looking at this, it’s amazing that we’re all still here. They are rather neat and natty little porcelain objects, and I’m glad I now know what they were for.

Onto some more pottery… of course. These bits were found on a footpath near Carr House Farm, Whitfield (now in the Shirebrook estate). Probably farm waste, but they are interesting.

Top row, left, is a fragment of window glass, thin and bluish, it’s perhaps quite early (18th century?). Next to it is a sherd of willow pattern, from the border of the design. Bottom row, right is a sherd of Engine Turned Industrial Slipware dating to c.1790-1880… ish (here is my article on this stuff). In the middle is a shard of very dark, almost black, glass, probably from a bottle. The dark colour normally indicates it is early – the darker, the earlier – as a rule of thumb – 18th century gin or wine bottle, perhaps? Far left, though, is my favourite sherd. This is the tiny, almost non-functional, handle from a 17th century manganese-glazed tyg. Yep, you read that right, a tyg – a multi-handled drinking cup of the 17th-18th century. The handles are tiny, perhaps only 1.5″ in diameter, but allow a hot cup to be passed from person to person without scalding. A complete version looked sort of like this:

Image stolen, shamelessly, from the Victoria and Albert Museum – explore it here.

Absolutely wonderful… I love this sort of thing.

Next up we have a pair of vulcanised rubber bottle stoppers.

Early 20th century in date, I honestly love these things – very tactile, and usually have a maker or company name on top, as is the case here:

Wilson & Bate of Glossop are very well known local company. Founded in 1869 they made mineral water, as well as cordials and beers. The bottles – stone ware and glass – are quite commonly found, too, and fragments have featured on the blog previously. Andrew & Atkinson of Hyde are similarly well known – founded in 1890, their bottles and tops are another common find – there is a great deal of information about them on the always interesting Hydonian blog. Do check it out, it’s very good.

And now… some money.

I do like the colour of verdigris corrosion

A pair of old One Penny coins – one dated 1929, the other corroded beyond all help (apparently, there are things I can do to remove the corrosion, but, frankly, and between you and me, I can’t be arsed). Both were found on the grass/mud by the children’s play area, perhaps fallen out of the pocket of a child.

Next up, is this lovely thing – a ceramic Reeves paint pan, designed to take a tablet of watercolour (orange, judging from the bit still inside the pan).

Apparently, they are quite common finds on dump sites and what-not, but this is the only one I’ve ever found.

It says on the bottom “Reeves’ School Quality. Made in England”, and you can’t argue with that. It would originally have been one of many in a paint box, and designed to be bought as refills as they run out. The whole doodad would have looked like this:

You can buy similar Reeves’ paintboxes on ebay – here, for example

Right, that’s all for now. Apologies for the long-winded ramble that this blog post seems to have become, but I hope you enjoyed it. And apologies also for the delay in posting the article… all I can say is a combination of exciting news and personal issues have conspired against me… sorry. Now, for those of you who are interested, I have just discovered a wonderful article on Industrial Slip Wares that is waaaaaay more comprehensive than mine – so if you have an interest in this type of pottery, then give it a read. It also has some beautiful photograph of the pottery, as well as how it is made. It really is quite comprehensive – check it out here.

Also, the YouTube channel I mentioned, the Northern Mudlarks, is well worth checking out. They put up a new video each week of them finding exactly the sort of things you have just read about, and explore all kinds of interesting places and things, as well as craft-y type stuff. So if you like this blog, then Check them out, here.

So then, that’s all for now. I have exciting news for the near future, and there’s lots going on at the moment. So watch this space, or Twitter (or whatever it calls itself these days).

Until next time, look after yourselves and each other, and I remain, your humble servant.

TCG

Archaeology · Pottery

A Chance Encounter

April 4, 2023 Tim Campbell-Green2 Comments

What ho, dear and lovely people, what ho!

Firstly, let me offer my apologies for the distinct lack of activity following my last post two months ago. I try and post at least an article a month, and the intention is there, but sometimes life just stops me. And life in CG Towers has been somewhat tense and trying recently, for one reason or another. Health concerns – both mental and physical – have taken their toll, as has some serious repair/building work. Amidst all this I simply ran out of steam and disengaged from my ‘normal’ life to focus on matters far more important and urgent. Mercifully, the worst has passed, but I am struggling to recapture my previous vim, vigour, and verdigris… if that’s the word I’m fumbling for. So there we are, and here we are, and this post is the first one now that the corner has hopefully been turned. On, ever on… if sometimes a little slowly and shakily.

As I passed through Harehills the other day I felt that familiar tingle, the magnetic impulse that exists ‘twixt sherd and nerd. Glancing here and there my eyes picked out some blue amongst the greys, greens, and browns, and lo! ‘Twas a sherd, a thing of joy, a glimmer of hope, heart, and humour.

Small, dirty, forgotten… but full of promise.

Stooping, I quickly photographed it, aware that a dog walker was slowly backing away from me in that way that people do. And then I picked it up. I love moments like this, and it’s why I do what I do. It’s not just the joy of finding a bit of treasure, a childhood pleasure that has never left me, but to hold in your hand a little piece of the past, a fragment of life long gone, with all the possibilities – that’s the key, and why I became an archaeologist… as if I ever wasn’t. I began to look at the sherd, to analyse and understand it. And then a thought: I’ll take you, gentle reader, on the journey of discovery with me, and we can unlock the secrets of the sherd together. This could be a bit of fun. Of course, “could” and “fun” in that sentence are used with caution, obviously.

The unwashed sherd, still full of promise.

Home it came, unwashed in my jacket pocket – for dramatic effect I resisted the urge to wipe it. What secrets would be revealed I wondered, as I ran it under the tap, and scrubbed it with an old toothbrush I keep for just such a purpose (of medium hardness, for those taking notes). First one side then the other, to expose the surface, and then each of the four edges, so that the important fabric is revealed. An interesting aside – sherds normally break into broadly geometrical shapes of 4 or 5 sides, but rarely more or less. This is one of the ways that you can spot a sherd from a distance, as nature rarely has 4 or 5 sided shapes, not does it often have straight-ish edges.

The cleaned sherd. It’s quite a pretty blue, not the normal cobalt blue of the Willow Pattern.

During the cleaning process, a number of things became apparent. Firstly, it came from a thin-walled vessel, which, coupled with having a diameter of roughly 10cm, suggests it is likely to have been part of a cup. Bigger vessels have thicker walls, and table wares – the pots from which you eat and especially drink (as opposed to preparing, cooking, or serving) tend to be more delicate and have thinner walls.

Secondly, both the exterior and interior surface was rough and dull. This is not how it would have been originally – it should have been smooth and shiny – but is the result of post-depositional activity… in this case, fire. Until the 1920’s, Harehills was used in part as a rubbish dump, and fires were often deliberately set in order to keep the smell down, and rats and flies away. They could start accidentally also, as people would clear out their coal fire which often contained smouldering cinders. Indeed, the 1928 Glossop ‘state of the union’ report tells us that one dump, “about 20ft in depth, had been on fire for many years“. The heat melts and bubbles the surface, causing the tiny holes and pitting you can just make out.

The pinkish staining on the interior is possibly a grease stain, or perhaps also the result of post-depositional activity, with the colour leaching out of some other piece of rubbish?

Looking at the break we can see the fabric, which in this case is a fairly poor quality greyish Bone China.

You can also see the surfaces in section – the thin white line on either edge.

Now, given that the edges shows no sign of being burnt, unlike the surface, it seems that the sherd was broken off a larger piece after the fire damage had been done, suggesting that it has moved around a bit since it was first thrown away. This is also shown by the scratches you can see on the interior; they’re not like those made by a knife on a plate (and how hard do you have to stir a cup of tea to mark the glaze?), but have been made by close proximity to, and movement over, stones.

Moving onto the decoration. Obviously it’s blue and white, but the colour of the blue is odd, and it looks more like a spongeware pattern, with the blurred graininess you associate with the printing process, than the standard cobalt transfer printed whatnot. On balance, I’d say its a somewhat poor quality transfer which has a graininess to it. The image is something floral; I can see leaves, but not those found in the usual willow pattern pottery, but something more naturalistic, and which might suggests a later date for the cup.

The most obvious aspect of decoration is the fluting running vertically up the body of the cup (clearly visible in the fabric photograph above). This was quite a common decorative theme in the late Victorian and early 20th cemtury, with some even running diagonally up the body, spiralling around it.

So, putting it all together, and knowing what we know, we can work out what it might have looked like originally, and a short while later we go from inch long sherd to this…

Not this 100% precisely, but near as dammit. Image nicked from this website here.

So there we go – from muddy sherd to teacup in a few minutes. It’s amazing how much information can be retrieved from just a small fragment. But honestly though, all sherds have a similar story to tell, and each one can give us all the information, we just have to look and listen. Now, your turn! Go for a walk through Harehills, or Manor Park, or indeed anywhere else where there are herds of sherds, pick one up, and see if you can find the story. Let me know how you get on.

Right, that’s all for this time, and I hope you enjoyed it. I’d like to say I’ll make up for my absence by posting lots more soon, but I don’t want to set myself up to fail, and cause more pressure for myself. More is coming, though: I have a much bigger pottery post which is almost done, but I’ll wait a little while before posting it. Also, I have some big news in the pipeline. BIG news, to be honest… so watch this space.

In the meantime look after yourselves and each other. And remember that if someone says they’re “alright”, they might not be. We all need a little help from time to time.

Until next time, I remain,

Your humble servant.

TCG

Archaeology · Pottery · Pottery Guide

The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.6 – Porcelain & Bone China.

November 3, 2022 Tim Campbell-Green3 Comments

What ho, wonderful folk, what ho!

We have today yet another instalment of that momentous work The Rough Guide to Pottery – it truly is the gift that keeps on giving. Try to contain your excitement, but I know it is difficult. Mrs Hamnett herself commented only the other day, as I was explaining the process of making a 17th century slip ware bowl, how lucky she was to have married me. And Master Hamnett runs and hides from me screaming “go away!” whenever I show him a lovely piece of stoneware… the playful scamp.

So then… Porcelain.

A modern Spode porcelain teacup and saucer – stolen shamelessly from their website here.

Here we stray into the realm of real ‘collectors’ and people who spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a cup. Fair play to them I say, but to be honest, to me and you the minute details of rare and collectible porcelain don’t matter that much.

A Victorian pair of tea/coffee cups – £13 on ebay here (and no, they are not mine!)

True Porcelain was developed in China in the 9^th century, and is essentially a very refined stoneware. It is often delicate with very thin walls – so thin that you can see light through them – yet is very hard wearing and tough. Its development was due to an aesthetic search to find a substance that was as hard and cold as jade, and yet gave a ringing tone when struck, like bronze. True Porcelain is made from a mixture of the mineral feldspar and kaolin, a type of clay, and fired to a very high temperature (1400°) which vitrifies (melts) it into an almost glass-like state. It was exported to Europe from 1500s onwards, and was hugely different to the coarse earthernwares that made up European pottery then; this stuff was incomparable (that thing your 3-year-old made using Playdoh versus the finest China).

The genuine thing; late 17th/early 18th century Chinese porcelain. A mere snip at £38,000!

Porcelain became very popular in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, particularly due to tea and coffee consumption among the wealthy being fashionable – essentially they wanted something similarly exclusive to drink out of. It honestly amazes me how much of history is driven by fashion and the need to be different and ahead of the crowd – something that isn’t going to change any time soon.

Now, being imported from China meant it was hugely expensive, and many factories began to try and make it. However, no one really knew how it was done. Meisson in Germany began producing very similar pottery in the 1710’s, and others in Europe and the UK had early successes, often involving adding glass dust to fine clays. A significant breakthrough came in the mid 1790’s when Josiah Spode perfected what became known as Bone China. Here, a very fine clay is mixed with about 25% crushed burnt bone, and fired. This produced an almost identical porcelain, and it allowed the mass production of the pottery which is still going today. Also, as it became affordable, it was no longer an exclusive product despite still having a ‘classy’, even snobbish, image. Personally, I prefer an earthernware mug, but my grandparents generation would have scowled at my choice of cup. Now, at the risk of incurring the wrath of Porcelain experts, I’m lumping true imported Porcelain with Bone China here.

Does exactly what it says on the bottom on the early 20th century teacup

There are no perceptible differences at the level at which we are working, nor is it vital that we pinpoint a date of something – we are simply having fun (admittedly some of us take our fun more seriously than others who, for example, don’t clean their pottery. Or who use an egg as a photographic scale. I’m not naming names, you know who you are.). If you do want to go down that rabbit hole, there are dozens of books on the subject that allow you to explore dates, patterns, shapes, types, names, etc. However, for our purposes, it all goes under the heading PORCELAIN. I expect a visit from the heavy thugs of the porcelain collecting world within moments of publishing this.

PORCELAIN (aka Bone China, China)
DATE: Realistically c.1800 – Now. Theoretically, but unlikely, 1500 onwards.
DESCRIPTION: Thin walled vessels, delicate, with many different decorative motifs and colours, occasionally with gilding.
SHAPES: Most shapes, but very commonly tea/coffee cups, saucers, small plates.

Very thin walls, but is very hard, especially when compared with ‘normal’ pottery. The fabric is white or very pale grey, with perhaps a hint of blue, and with no inclusions – it is pure. The texture is very glassy, and is grainy with tiny voids – it reminds me of cauliflower heads, or snow. See this comparison with earthernware, for example:

Porcelain left, earthernware right (my bare foot, bottom right… it’s probably for the best we move on, really). The difference in the fabrics is very noticeable, it’s almost wet(porcelain) versus dry (earthernware).

It also breaks like glass or flint, rather than pottery, with tiny flattish flakes and sharp edges.

It’s odd stuff! You can see how it breaks into flakes, and I remember reading about Australian Aboriginal tribes using telegraph wire insulators to make stone tools. Makes sense.

Banging sherds together, they make a high ringing sound – a ‘tink’, rather than a ‘thunk’ if you see what I mean (don’t look at me like that…). Also, if you hold a sherd up to a light, you should be able to see through it – try moving a finger between the sherd and the light source. The surface is very shiny with the glaze visible in the section as a clear white line, often with the paint of the decoration bleeding into it. Decoration is fine hand-painted images, normally in blue, though other colours are found, and normally of naturalistic scenes – flowers, landscapes, trees, etc. The start of the obsession with ‘Chinese’ decorations (including ‘Willow Pattern’) can be traced to the original porcelain vessels. Shapes are largely bowls, delicate teacups, plates and saucers, though teapots, milk jugs, and other shapes do occur. Other decoration can be painted over the top of the glaze. Later examples of Porcelain/Bone China can be very colourful, and very fine, too, often with a gold leaf gilding.

A random selection of Glossop found sherds of porcelain showing a range of decoration. I have to say, it’s all a little gaudy for my tastes.

This is more like it – a flowing, living, painted decoration – fluid lines, almost jazz-like in improvisation. Lovely stuff. I found this tiny sherd in the River Thames a few years ago, and it is one of my favourite sherds. Blimey, now there’s a phrase I never expected to type!

Now, because I love you so much, and I know how much you enjoy my ramblings about pottery (I’m ignoring you – you don’t have to be here, you know), I thought I’d add another related ware type.

Whilst searching for an easy Porcelain recipe, Wedgewood made numerous innovations in pottery (including the famous Jasper Ware), one of which was Basalt Ware. Although it is rare, I love this stuff.

Some Black Basalt Ware. As I say, I really like this stuff.

BLACK BASALT WARE (aka Basalt Ware or Basaltes)
DATE: 1770-1820
DESCRIPTION: It is characterised by a black surface, thin walls, and impressed – not painted – decoration. Very classical Greek and Roman influenced motifs and designs.
SHAPES: Cups, Bowls, Tea & Coffee Sets, Vases, Busts, Plaques, Figurines, and Relief Medallions.

A red clay is mixed with manganese oxide, which gives it its black colour, and it is fired to a very high temperature to make a refined stoneware. It is hard-wearing, and, like porcelain, doesn’t break like ‘normal’ pottery, but more like glass, with straightish sharp edges. The fabric is very hard and very dense, as you would expect, and is totally uniform – there are no inclusions – but it is quite grainy, again, like porcelain. The gloss surface can be dull or shiny, though never a brilliant shine, and there is no glaze or surface; the fabric is the pot, which seems odd.

Here is the fabric – hard and grainy, but there is no surface. You can also see the voids that are formed by gasses produced during firing.

Impressed decoration, very Classical in inspiration.

More impressed decoration – this time the base of a tree or shrub.

Thin walled, it has impressed and embossed decoration – rouletting, geometric shapes, naturalistic scenes with classical motifs and flora. It looks vaguely Roman, and is very heavily influenced by the Greek, Roman, and Egyptian antiquities that were being unearthed at that time, and which were fuelling the Georgian neo-classical obsession in all aspects of life. As a pottery type it’s not common, but you can occasionally find it here and there.

Well then, excitement over. That’s all for this time.

There is lots in the pipeline – both Glossop related, and further afield – so watch this space, and as always I have several large posts ready written – so perhaps two this month? You lucky people, you!

I also have a thing coming up – one of this public speaking things that I can’t seem to stop doing! This one is in Chester, and is a folklore/archaeology ‘discussion’ with the wonderful Elizabeth Garner, and called ‘The Gold In Your Back Yard‘. It’s free, but do book through Eventbrite here. It will, of course, be amazing… I think. But if not, you can just sit at the back and ask awkward questions! I’ll also shamelessly plug Liz’s book, Lost and Found (buy it here). It is a wonderful collection of folktales, beautifully told. She also mentions this archaeologist bloke, Tim Campbell-something-or-other. Honestly though, it is well worth buying.

More soon, I promise. But until then, look after yourselves and each other. And I remain,

Your Humble Servant,

TCG

Archaeology · Pottery · Pottery Guide

The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.4 – Creamware, Pearlware, & Whiteware.

June 30, 2022August 7, 2022 Tim Campbell-Green3 Comments

What ho, dear and gentle readers, what ho!

How are we all? I hope everyone is well. Or, at the very least, not actively unwell. Well, all except you, that is. Yes you… you know who you are. The “all pottery is dull as dish soap” chap… Mr Shouty-Outy. I hope you stub your toe really hard.

Anyway, with such unpleasantness out of the way, we can move on to the subject of today’s article. Ladies and gentlefolk, may I introduce to you… Creamware, Pearlware, and Whiteware.

Now, even for a certifiable pottery nerd such as myself, this is far from a riveting subject. I mean, it’s less ‘edge of your seat’, and more slump down the back of the sofa in a fashion that causes people to enquire as to whether one is alright, and mutter concernedly about ‘strokes’ and ‘comas’. But before you agree with Mr Shouty-Outy, and start tying a noose, pause, crack open a bottle of the stuff that cheers, and have a read, as the above three pottery types will form a large part of any pottery you find, and is an important part of the development of British pottery.

The history of British pottery since roughly the mid 17th century can perhaps be characterised as the pursuit of white. Once imports of Chinese porcelain began, with their pure white fabrics and background, and blue painted patterns, we Brits fell in love with the design. But the problem was that it was very, very, expensive, and far out of the price-range of the developing aspirational middle classes, who were seeking to copy the upper classes. We copied the designs and colouring in beautiful Tin Glazed or Delft wares, and made some incredibly fine pottery in what is called Fine White Stoneware (you’ll be pleased to note that both of these will feature in future pottery guides; oh look, that woman over there is so excited about that, she is literally screaming with joy). But with the mid 18th century explosion in tea and coffee consumption, there was increasing demand for a cheaply produced white background upon which decoration might be painted or printed.

The following three types – Creamware, Pearlware, and Whiteware – were developed as these backgrounds. It is unlikely that you will come across them on their own (though not impossible), it is more likely you will say “What ho! I say, that looks like blue and white transfer printed decoration on a Pearlware background” which should, if you use the guide the right way, give a date for your sherd, and make you feel warm, fuzzy, and happy. And a little smug that you know things. Unfortunately, though, it will make other people angry and beg/threaten you to stop talking. No? Just me? Ahem… anyway.

CREAMWARE (aka Queen’s Ware)
DATE: 1760’s – 1820’s
DESCRIPTION: A pale cream colour ‘white’.
SHAPES: A huge number of shapes – from the plain bowl and plate, to wonderful pierced vases, decorative vessels, and truly strange designs.

Developed by, among others, Josiah Wedgewood – the great 18th century potter – in the 1760’s, and by the 1780’s was so popular that it essentially killed off both White Stoneware and Tin-Glazed pottery production. Wedgewood attained royal patronage by supplying a tea set to Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, who later commissioned a 925 piece dinner service; he renamed his Creamware ‘Queen’s Ware’ in her honour. Shape wise, it occurs in every conceivable pottery type – from regular plates and bowls, to rare and fancy shapes – pierced vases, delicate jugs, salt and sugar shakers, ice buckets, etc. Some of the vessels were also moulded with ornate naturalistic shapes – leaves, plants, etc.

Fancy pierced shapes. Courtesy of Salisbury Museum.

It is also very decorative. Commonly with a blue and white transfer print, but also hand painted with pictures, words, and designs.

A two-handed loving cup, hand painted. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Two sherds of Creamware. The one on the right is particularly nice – a lid to a jug or similar with a moulded leaf design on the top.

Because the shape of the vessel is moulded, it means that it has very thin walls (the nice stuff does at least), but it also means that it can be very decorative, with all sorts of complex applied designs.

The fabric is a pale creamy white, achieved by mixing Kaolin, a very fine white clay, into the regular earthernware clay. This already pale clay base is then coated in a lead glaze mixed with copper, and fired producing the pale butter colour. Where the glaze has pooled whilst drying before being fired – usually on the base – you can sometimes see a greenish tint (the copper), which is a tell-tale sign of Creamware.

The greenish hue of the glaze can be seen where it has pooled in between the leaves.

It is also noticeably cream-coloured when compared with other white sherds. Creamware’s popularity waned after 1800, when it was overtaken by Pearlware, a cheaper, more pure white version of it.

PEARLWARE (aka Pearl White, or China Glaze)
DATE: 1780’s – 1820’s
DESCRIPTION: A blusish ‘white’.
SHAPES: Seemingly more utilitarian than the Creamware, but still a large range; so plates, bowls, dishes, jugs, cups, tankards, & goblets.

Pearlware is a refinement of Creamware, developed again by Wedgewood, in the 1780’s. It is almost like a less fussy, less fine, and more robust version, and there seems to be far fewer of the pierced vessels, ornateness, and incredibly detailed moulding. It does occur moulded, especially in tankards and Feather-Edged dishes, but it is less common than in Creamware. This may reflect the fashion of the time – a move toward simplicity – but equally it could be that Pearlware was conceived as more utilitarian.

The blueish tint of the glaze is obvious against the black background, and especially compared with the white clay.

The whiteness in Pearlware was achieved by adding cobalt – a blue mineral – to the lead glaze, giving an almost blue glow to the pottery – a sort of trick of the eye. Again, the blueness is particularly noticeable where the glaze has pooled, often on the underside.

Here you can see the cobalt blue colouring to the glaze where it has pooled on the underside of this mug. This is a badly made mug, and the glaze has over-fired in places.

In terms of decoration, it could be hand painted – either as a pattern, or just the edges in Feather-Edged Ware (see the example in the photo above). However, it is more commonly encountered as a base for transfer printed decorative motifs – willow pattern and the like. It was also commonly used as a base for Industrial Slipwares (discussed here in Part 3 of the guide). Pearlware began to fall out of favour in the 1820’s, and was superseded by the development of Whiteware.

WHITEWARE
DATE: 1820’s – Now
DESCRIPTION: White fabric, with a white glaze.
SHAPES: Quite literally every shape.

Characterised by a very white fabric, with a white glaze, upon which all sorts of patterns and motifs were put; this is essentially the stuff that we eat from now. If you are uncertain, go into your kitchen, get a plate from Ikea, break it, and have a look at the break. That’s Whiteware.

Cobalt use declined in the early 1800’s, perhaps due to difficulty and expense of obtaining it, but this coincided with the process of chemically refining the clay to produce a purer white becoming easier. And this, combined with better glazes, meant that a perfect white background colour could now be achieved. And not much has changed 200 years later. Well, apart from the fact the glaze now has less lead in it… which is nice. Decoration is, well, everything we can think of – painted, sponged, transfer printed – and is pictures, patterns, or words. This stuff is very, very, common, and largely boring even by my standards, but sometimes, precisely because it was used for all sorts of things, it throws up a gem or two.

A selection of 19th and early 20th century printed sherds on Whiteware. This stuff is always a joy to find.

HOW TO TELL THEM APART.

Should you want to know which sherd is of what type, for whatever reason (and we don’t judge on this website), then it would be very helpful to put them on a plain white piece of paper under a bright light. In this environment, Creamware will appear pale cream coloured, Pearlware will appear blue-ish tinged, and Whiteware will simply blend in – like so:

The three types together: from left, Creamware, Pearlware, Whiteware.

So now you know.

Now, I admit that this wasn’t the most fascinating article (look it’s no use sobbing… I don’t force you to read the blog), but it is an important one in that it builds a more complete picture of post-medieval pottery, and means that you now know what I mean when I say Pearlware. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether that is a good thing or not.

That’s all for now. I have about another six half-finished articles which I will get around to completing very soon, including ‘magical protection‘, ‘quarries‘, ‘holed stones‘, ‘tracks‘, ‘updates‘, and your favourite and mine… some more pottery, but I’ll spare you that until later.

Right, until the next time, look after yourselves and each other, and I remain.

Your humble servant,

RH.

Archaeology · Pottery · Whitfield

A Green-Fingered Garden Grab*

June 22, 2022 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

*Ok, so I couldn’t think of a better title.

What ho, what ho, what ho!

So, right now, as we hurtle toward the solstice, is my favourite time of the year. Spring into summer – the days are long, my birthday is hoving into view (19th July, if anyone is interested… and a dark fruity red, if anyone is feeling flush). It also means time spent in the garden, planting and preparing the soil. Hamnett Towers is blessed with a small back garden (utterly destroyed by chickens… honestly, it looks like the Western Front), and a slightly larger front garden where the vegetables are planted. Both of these forces of nature – chicken and man – excavate all sorts of goodies. Predictably, I have kept everything I have found, and kept them separate; Hamnett Towers was at one point two separate ‘back-to-back’ terraced houses, so the archaeology of either side might tell a slightly different story (old archaeological habit). And so far, this year has produced some very interesting bits.

So, please join me in the garden. Ah, sorry, no shorts or baseball caps please – this is an English gentleman’s abode; t-shirts I can just about cope with, but I mean, a chap has to have standards dash it!

Here’s the day’s findings from the front garden:

A selection of the history of the land the garden has decided to show us this year… so far.

Let’s start with the nail – a Victorian, hand-made, copper roof nail, to be precise. I’m something of a magnet for these things, and they seem to find me wherever I go. They are truly mundane – the nail that holds on a roof tile – and yet are such lovely and tactile things (I’ve blogged about them before – here – FIVE years ago… blimey!). Copper was used as it is largely resistant to corrosion, and their square section is a dead giveaway of age.

Lovely green verdegris competes with rust (the result of it lying next to something iron based) on the surface.

They are made relatively simply, but by hand. Each nail is cut via a press from a long flattened strip of copper (thus the square body of the nail). It is then placed into a small mold or former, point down, and the exposed top is hammered by hand until it flattens out, forming the nail head. Close-up you can see the two flashing strips formed as the soft copper is driven between the halves of the mold.

A close up of the underside of the nail head, clearly showing the copper flashing.

The nail may have come from my house roof, which is a great thought.

Next to the nail is a sherd of spongeware, probably from a large bowl or shallow dish. I find a lot of this particular vessel in the garden, and I might have to try and reconstruct it sometime (follow the link above, 3rd photograph down, on the right for more of the same bowl).

Next row, a sherd of marmalade/preserve jar (here, for more information), and then two thoroughly uninspiring sherds of white glazed pottery. Then, this beauty!

Super. An amazing chance find whilst whilst putting in some pea and bean plants… half of which were eaten on the first night by what can only be imagined as a biblical plague of famished slugs – honestly, I swear I could hear a very slow moving rumbling sound. If you’ll pardon the French… Bastards!

Wonderful! A small bone button, and almost certainly Victorian in date. Delicate, handmade, and slightly off-centre, it is lovely. Again, something so mundane – every item of clothing would have had a dozen of these; will people be cooing over the zips in our trousers in 100 years? And yet, here we are, admiring it’s beauty. Bone was such a common substance in the pre-20th century, and we tend to shy away from it as a material now – how many of us would brush our teeth with a bone toothbrush? Or use bone game pieces? I think we have become a little squeamish. Yet, it was a major resource in history – so many animals, so much bone. Bone preserves very well in the right conditions, and although this has cracked with age, I bet it could be sewn on and used again.

Right then, the image of the Somme, c.1916, that is the back garden. There’s always something that turns up here, not all of it interesting, but usually worth a look. And this year is no exception, with a couple of very nice finds.

A rather motley looking collection, I must admit.

So then… top left we have bonfire glass. Essentially glass that has been melted in a fire. This may have been accidental, or just the result of rubbish disposal. Often Victorian and later rubbish dumps were set on fire to keep the rat population down, and bonfire glass can be quite pretty. This one… not so much.

It’s quite a cool object, but not particularly pretty.

Ignore the next sherd for the moment, and move onto the cream coloured stoneware sherd, possibly from a flask or other oval shaped vessel. Then we have some glass – it is quite chunky, which indicates it is old, but isn’t that lovely green colour, nor full of bubbles, that would indicate a Victorian date. Probably Early 20th century, and likely from a small bottle – perhaps medicine or similar.

Ignoring the other reddish coloured sherds, again for the moment, we have this beauty:

You can see the striations caused by wiping the red under-glaze slip with a wet rag – the marks of the potter preserved for eternity in clay. Lovely stuff!

This is often called Pancheon Ware, after the large (50cm+) pancheon bowls that were extremely common from the 17th century to the early Victorian period. The correct term should be Post Medieval Redware, but that covers a multitude of pottery types and shapes from c.1550s to the Victorian period, of which this is just one.

Essentially a large mixing bowl, bread proving bowl, or vessel to allow cream to separate from milk. This is a lovely antique example, the image of which was stolen from this website which sold it for £195.

They often occur in huge chunks up to 2cm thick, and are usually glazed only on the interior to make it waterproof. I’ve talked about them before, but this is a nice example, showing the red slip on the surface, and then the dark brown glaze, made by adding iron oxide to a lead glaze, producing the deep shiny colour. The glaze on this, as with many, has been allowed to slop over the side and stop just below the rim, producing a messy natural decoration (the example above shows the glaze stopping on the rim, but you can see the effect they are going for).

Below and right of this sherd there are 4 sherds of standard Victorian to mid 20th century whitewares nothing inspiring, or even particularly worth writing about, although there is a rim of a bone china cup. Below and left is a single fragment of a clay pipe stem. Again, nothing exciting – the hole, or bore, through the middle of the stem is narrow which tells us that it is Victorian in date (broadly, a wide bore = 17th to early 18th century, a narrow bore = late 18th to 19th century). Still, it’s a bit of social history… I just wish I could find a bowl!

Then there was the treasure! Occasionally, certainly not often, I find something made of metal. And a few weeks ago, as those who follow me on twitter will know, I found a metal button.

Tiny, just 1cm in diameter, and very delicate. Amazing it survived, to be honest. And even more amazing it was seen.

Well, no… credit where credit’s due – I didn’t find it, Master Hamnett did, with his six year old eagle eyes. A lovely little 2 eye brass button, probably Victorian in date. It’s probably from a child’s dress, probably something like this:

A heavy linen dress for a child. It is beautifully decorated with hand-made edging.

And if you look closely using a decent magnifying glass, rather than the dodgy macro setting on my phone, you can see the remains of the original cloth that would have covered it:

Amazing that the cloth has been preserved, trapped between the two sides of the button’s lip.

It would have looked like this when new:

Small and delicate, and lovingly sewn on.

The thing I love about this is that the child must have lived and grown up exactly where Master Hamnett is now, and doing many of the same things. There is real sense of connection to the past through a single, small and dirty, seemingly uninspiring object. By the way, the story of the Victorian child’s dress (one of several, I hasten to add) is for another time, but it is from a probable apotropaic cache that was donated to me for safekeeping. One of two I now curate. I really don’t have enough time to write all this up, so if someone want to donate a stack of cash to allow me to write, please feel free!

And now this, the real treasure. Quite literally, for once.

Gnarled is the word. I had no idea what it was when I picked it up.

I know at first glance it looks like something has blown it up, but look beyond that, and it’s a wonderful, if completely knackered, piece Victorian costume jewellery brooch. It’s missing just about everything, including the central glass stone, but would have been very pretty – probably looking something like this:

Picture stolen from this website… the brooch is still there. Honest, guv.

I didn’t know what it was when I picked it up, but it was that greyish green that indicated a copper alloy (brass or bronze, for example), and is something I always pick up. It was only when cleaning it that I noticed the paste stones.

You can see the cut paste stone in it’s setting, and all the other setting missing theirs. There are three stones still on the brooch, and very little else.

Amazing, really. And this was just a small amount of time poking around, getting really close and personal with the soil in my garden. And my garden is not unique by any stretch, not even close. I guarantee, every garden in Glossop – no, the country – will produce some treasure – whether it’s early Victorian annular ware from a house near the station, a broken bottle rim from a former pub, a pipe stem from a current pub, or a piece of Victorian child’s plate from a modern garden in Simmondley (all examples from experience). Obviously, I realise that not everyone is lucky enough to have a garden, but we all can access some green space. As an experiment, this evening, pour yourself a drop of the stuff that cheers, and go and sit on what ever patch of earth is closest to you. This may be your garden, or it might be a park, or someone else’s garden, a playing field, or public footpath, or whatever. Now sit down and take a deep breath, listen to the sounds – birds or traffic – tune in, and simply look around you. If you can, dig about a bit, and don’t be frightened of getting your hands dirty, either. With enough time, something will turn up. And please, mail me the results.

Right, that’s about it I think. Next time more pottery – essentially a part 2 to this post, looking at the pottery I told you to ignore above. A competition! If you can get back to me and tell me what they are, and why they are not our type of thing, before I can post the next article, you can win those bits of pottery. Woohoo! (Now look here, Mr Shouty… some people like pottery, you know. And no, I’m not “having a laugh“).

More very soon, but until then, look after yourselves and each other.

And I remain, your humble servant,

Archaeology · Pottery · Pottery Guide

The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.3 – Industrial Slipware

May 4, 2022October 8, 2023 Tim Campbell-Green6 Comments

What ho! What ho! And, if I may be so bold… What ho!

Well, as promised, here is the second post in the month of May. At this rate, I might make three posts… but let’s not tempt fate.

And also as promised, it’s a pottery one! Now, I know, I know… pottery is not to everyone’s taste (I say! Look here… calling me a “pottery obsessed hobbledehoy” says more about you than it does me), but it is important. And besides, it’s my blog!

Part 3 of the guide looks at ‘Industrial Slipwares’ – a broad group of commonly encountered Late Georgian and Victorian pottery (roughly 1780 to perhaps the 1850’s, and later). The term Industrial here refers both to the method used to make them – in factories, and often employing machines – but also in order to distinguish them from the earlier handmade 17th and early 18th century ‘Staffordshire’ type slipwares (which I’ll cover in a later post… you lucky folk, you). Originally called ‘Dipped’ wares, the process employed in making them involves dipping the formed clay vessel into a coloured slip – essentially a thin solution of clay suspended in water – and firing it. It is then glazed and fired for a second time to produce a hard-wearing pot. In terms of fabric, it is a fine earthernware with thin walls, in a clean white fabric – originally a Creamware or Pearlware, but later (1830’s onwards) a standard Whiteware.

Fabric. Ahhhhh… fabric. Creamware, Pearlware, and a plain Whiteware.

Originally very fashionable amongst the elite, by the early 19^th Century Slipware begins to lose its social status, until eventually it becomes a utilitarian ware of the commoner, very much associated with pubs and taverns.

I have to say, some of this stuff looks decidedly modern – particularly the stripey stuff – and their bright colours and bold slick designs must have been a welcome antidote to the often drab creams and endless blue and white transfer printed stuff that dominated the period. The emphasis is on natural, earthy, almost pastel-coloured slips – brown, blue, green, orange, yellow, grey, and violet are favoured. I have to say, though, that some of this stuff is a tad on the garish side, and wouldn’t look out of place in a Wild West Bordello. Not that I would know what that would look like. Or indeed have any knowledge of such places. At all. In fact, I don’t know why I said that. Anyway… moving swiftly on.

Ahem… the pottery, then. Broadly speaking, there are 5 types that can be readily identified, although there is some crossover between them, as you’ll see.

Multi-Coloured (aka Variegated) (1780 – 1820)

Patterns of slip are made from multiple colours and smudged (the correct term is Joggled), giving a psychedelic effect that you either love or hate. Common patterns are the Cat’s Eye, Earthworm, Fan, and a nightmare-fuelled, migraine inducing, all-over slip. The crucial identifier is the joggled coloured slip.

An ‘earthworm’ design on a Variegated bowl. You can see how the slip decoration was applied in three colours, and then ‘joggled’ to make the wormlike decoration. These sherds are courtesy of The Blackden Trust, where I work. An amazing place where history and creativity collide… well worth checking out.

2. Mocha (aka Dendritic) (1780 – 1890)

Here, the slip is applied, and a substance – boiled tobacco juice, or urine, for example – was applied whilst still wet. This diffused producing the characteristic treelike (dendritic) decoration in a dark blue or black colour. Commonly associated with banded decoration (Annular, below) and in a brown or cream slip. Popular, but largely of early to mid-19^th century, and less common later in the century.

Two sherds of Mocha or Dendritic pottery. It’s difficult to get an understanding of what the whole looks like, so here is a shamelessly stolen photo from ebay…

You can buy this tankard for a mere snip of £125 here. You can get an idea of how it looks, though.

3. Engine Turned (1790 – 1880)

This looks particularly 20^th century. Here the slip is applied one over another, and the vessel is turned on a lathe, with the upper slip removed by machine, revealing the contrasting colour below. Vertical stripes, horizontal bands, and patterned geometric designs are all common. Painted designs were also applied using a machine, creating complex linear bands. Mainly early 19^th century in date, and particularly associated with Pearlware, so is much less common later.

Sherds of Engine Turned, showing the patterns created by machine – putting the ‘Industrial’ into industrial Slipware.

An excellent example of the complex painted and turned designs found on Engine Turned pottery. Sherd is not mine, alas. It belongs to a friend, Helen D.

Good close-up of a sherd showing where the slip removed to create the pattern.

Another close-up showing the grooves… groovy! Sorry, that was terrible – although I think I got away with it as no one seems to read these captions.

4. Banded (aka Annular) (1780 – 1890’s)

Simple horizontal bands of slip are painted on using a lathe in the manner of Engine Turned above, producing precise clean lines. Commonly contrasting blue and white, but also in browns, yellows, and creams. The banded decoration is also a large part of the decoration of the above three types, particularly Mocha, so there is considerable overlap. Also, the simple basic theme of bands continues into the 21st century, particularly in Cornishware pottery.

A selection of Annular pottery. The stripes were applied using a lathe, rather than by hand, hence their precision and uniform nature. This photo also gives us a sample of the kinds of colours that Industrial Slipware used.

The distinctly modern looking blue striped pottery, a predecessor to the Cornishware type you can still buy.

Date wise, it’s difficult to distinguish. My feeling, based on some evidence, is that prior to about 1840 Banded Ware used the browns, yellows, blues, and greys seen above. After that date however, banded decoration was confined largely to blue banding. Now, this is not absolute; the date is flexible; date of deposition is different to date of manufacture; ‘absence of evidence’ is not a strong argument; and it may even depend on such variables as availability, and even personal taste. But as a rule of thumb, I think it stands.

5. All Over (1780 – 1890’s)

The vessel is slipped, inside and out, in a single colour of the earthy colours common in Industrial Slip Ware, and then fired, producing a surface that is uniform in colour and treatment. Common in the 19^th century, but less so as the century went on.

Lovely stuff! The plain, All Over pottery.

The rim of a delicate tankard or mug. Beautiful colour, fantastic detail – this would have been lovely.

In terms of shapes, Industrial Slip Ware is exclusively a tableware, and very much liquid focused, so elegant mugs & tankards are common, as are jugs, and more rarely bowls.

Right then, armed with this new found knowledge, go forth and find! Honestly, this stuff shows up everywhere, in particular the banded Annular ware (very common in blue and white). Don’t forget to email/tweet/post any examples you find. I’d actually like to start posting finds that other people have found – a community of sherd nerds, if you will! So please, get in touch.

Honestly though, my life of late has been very busy, and increasingly I have started to realise that I am very bad at multi-tasking – meaning I can focus on only one big thing at a time – hence the lack of blog activity. I recently lead a Wan.Der (a curated historical walk, in association with the Glossop Creates mob). I thoroughly enjoyed it (despite the public speaking terror), and it seemed to be successful, which is nice – watch this space for news of others coming up, both more of the same, and new ones, too.

I’ve also started to upload some video onto the Glossop Cabinet YouTube account – there isn’t a huge amount on it at the moment, but more is coming soon. You can check it out here.

Right, that’s all for now. More later… I’m on a roll! But until then, look after yourselves and each other, and as always, I remain,

Your humble servant.

Archaeology · Pottery · Pottery Guide

The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.2 – Spongeware.

February 11, 2022 Tim Campbell-Green7 Comments

What ho, dear and gentle readers! Well, here we are again… pottery time! The second part of the Pottery Guide has hoved into view, and what a treat we have for you. I am going to go ahead and apologise in advance – it is heavy on pottery, but useful and fun, I hope. (Can anyone else hear that groaning and wailing… and gnashing of teeth. And no, no I don’t care about your “sainted aunt”, whoever is shouting).

SPONGEWARE
DATE: 1830’s – 1900’s
DESCRIPTION: Colourful repeated patterns printed with a sponge on a white background.
SHAPES: Bowls are very common, cups, mugs, tankards, small plates, larger plates, and jugs.

Wonderful, cheerful, simplistic, and yet incredibly attractive (not me, madam, but thank you). I have an almost childlike obsession with this pottery type, and it always makes me happy when I find some. Spongeware is characterised by shapes made with a natural sea sponge dipped into a coloured slip and dabbed onto a white background. The pot is then glazed and fired. The sponge is either applied all over, or it is cut into geometric shapes (diamonds, concentric circles, spirals, stars, zig-zags, swirls, etc.) or naturalistic forms (flowers, leaves, shamrocks, etc.), and dabbed in repeated patterns around the vessel.

20220211_141443 — 1. Spongeware. Lovely stuff, in pastel colours and very pleasing designs.

These patterns and shapes are fuzzy at the edges (the result of the sponge effect), are sometimes combined with hand-painted decoration (bands, blobs, leaves, etc.), with colours of a limited and pastel palette – light purple, blue, light green, yellow, pink, light red, etc.

2. In addition to the sponged designs, we can see here painted flourishes and designs.

3. The designs can be printed all over, rather than in discrete patterns. The grey painted sherd, bottom left, is an example of what is sometimes known in America as ‘Spatterware’.

The pottery itself is normally of a fairly poor quality Pearlware (pre-1850) or Whiteware, with a earthernware fabric that is white or off-white.

4. Fabric – white or off-white bog standard earthernware. You can see the painted decoration in section here, overlaid by the glaze.

Sherds can sometimes be found broken with jagged rather than smooth edges, indicative of a low temperature firing and poor quality clay. Lovely though it is, it is Spongeware is not high quality, but it is the very essence of cheap and cheerful.

5. The poor quality of the glaze is very clear here.

6. One of my favourite sherds, up close. You can see the way the decoration has been applied. You can also the jagged edges that indicate poor quality pottery, and the crazed glaze, possibly the result of heat, or more likely, a poor glaze.

Spongeware is often associated with Scotland where it was made in great quantities, but there were also manufacturing centres in Stoke on Trent and other parts of the Midlands. These vessels were mass produced – probably ‘sponged’ as piece work at home (and thus probably by women) – and supplied to a ready market that wanted a more colourful, and cheaper, pottery than the transfer printed material that dominated the market.

American studies indicate there are broad chronological variations within the ware group. America and Canada were huge export markets for Spongeware, and given the relative newness of their country in terms of European material, a lot of research has been conducted on even the smallest and most common bits of pottery that would be overlooked here. The three variations within Spongeware are:
All-Over:
Densley packed, the natural random patterning of the sponge is used to cover the whole vessel, or dabbed in distinct areas – the upper part of bowls for example. Spatterware is the American name for this type of pottery, as it looks as though the paint has been spattered on randomly, occasionally in several colours one over another. Looking closely, it is possible to see the tell-tale repeated patterns of holes in the unshaped natural sponges (Photo 3 above). This type appears to have been most popular up to the 1860’s.
Cut Sponge
Here the sponge was shaped into neat geometric and naturalistic forms, and the patterns repeated. Starts in the 1840’s, and is popular until the 1880’s. The addition of painted decoration to this form seems to appear in the latter part of the 19th century and last into the early 20th century (Photos 1 & 2 above).
Open Sponge
Similar to Cut Sponge, but the shapes are more natural and less regular, rigid and geometric. This type seems to have been most popular from c.1850 to c.1900 (the blue sherds in Photo 3 above).

This stated, there is a lot of overlap between styles, and I’m not convinced the chronology is as straightforward as that. Also, does the American market reflect what was happening here? As I say, it is a broad guide, use it as you will.

Spongeware, in it’s modern incarnation, is still a popular design for plates, and Hamnett Towers has a dinner service decorated with designs made using this very attractive style. I should invite you all for cocktails and a slap up feed, and you can have a look (black tie, of course… I have standards).

Right ho, that’s it for this week. I have a few, less pottery focused articles in the pipeline (what do you mean “praise be”? Honestly, some people.) which I’ll get on asap. My life is fairly jam packed with Glossop related archaeology and history at the moment, which is great, if a little scary! I am working with the good folk of Glossop Creates developing a walk that involves history and bits of pot… watch this space. I was also recently in the Glossop Chronicle (read it here – the edition is dated 3/2/2022, and it’s page 11), and the Glossop Creates blog, too. The organisation, based in the historic gasworks on Arundel Street, has some wonderful and big ideas for the town, and deserves to be lauded from the rooftops for their vision. So there!

More about this, and other exciting things, next time, but until then, look after yourselves and each other, and I remain.

Your humble servant,

Archaeology · Pottery

What Larks, Pip!

January 21, 2022 Tim Campbell-GreenLeave a comment

What ho, Glossop!

I was going to do another installment of the Pottery Guide, but one doesn’t want to over-egg the doodah, if you know what I mean… too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. So today’s quick post will be a visual record of a short mudlark I did at Harehills Park on the way to the shops the other day. A crisp and clear, but very cold, day, with a lovely winter sun for company, I noticed a piece of pottery gleaming white against the mud.

The sherd in its natural habitat. Shhhhh, don’t frighten it!

“Hell-lo!” I thought, and dove in lightning fast in case someone else beat me to it. You know how people are for pottery round here, you have to be quick, I can tell you. I once nearly lost an eye in a tussle with an old lady over a piece of feather-edged ware… knitting needles are ferocious weapons when wielded by the highly trained and woolly hatted. But I won the day, the sherd was mine… and I still wear one of the bounder’s ears on a chain around my neck as a memento. But I digress…

So, ninja-like, I pounced on the pottery. Victory!

Ooh nice, a sherd of Annular Ware. Probably late Victorian in date, or even early 20th century, this stuff looks almost modern thanks to TG Green’s Cornishware which continues the tradition of banded decoration in blue and white.

I looked ahead, and lo!

Classic mid – late Victorian annular ware, the brown stripes in particular give it away.

Some more Annular Ware, this time brown, blue and white, and very definitely mid-late Victorian. A rim sherd, so I can get a shape and size – almost vertical, and with a rim diameter of c.10cm, it was a mug or tankard like this one:

Rather lovely. The photograph is stolen from this antiques dealer’s website – here – and you can buy it for the snip of £380. A pity the Victorians never threw these things away whole.

Could there be more along the path edge?

On either side of the path, I could see sherds.

On I walked. The earth had opened, and I’d be a fool not to continue – “something… something… gift horses… something” as the saying goes. But indeed, something was happening, something I had not planned for, but which the fates had thrust upon me… and impromptu mudlark. I’d only popped out for a loaf of bread, a bottle of wine and an aubergine (which is an intimate, and possibly over-sharing snapshot of my life), and here I was… larking. What would the neighbours think? What would Mrs Hamnett think? Oh the shame! And yet on I went, pulled by the invisible force that binds the sherd to the nerd.

Another.

The white straight edges against the grey-brown earth is quite striking.

The moment of excitement… what’s on the other side? I’ve been doing this all my life – I would drive my parents to distraction finding bits like this – but it still gives a little thrill.

Willow pattern, part of the fence that forms the background to the main ‘story’. I like the colours in this photograph – the blue, pink and grey are visually pleasing.

The willow pattern plate – Blue and White Transfer Printed Pottery, technically. I’ve circled where the sherd came from in the spurious story that is portrayed on the plate – you can read all about it in a fascinating article here.

And another.

The unmistakeable colour of Derbyshire Stoneware (follow the link for more)

I wonder if I always have dirty hands when I go shopping?

Some glass, peeking, shimmering, calling.

A bottle. Broken, but still interesting.

The bottle top/neck (or ‘finish’) is one which is called an ‘applied finish’ – it’s a solution to a problem of how do you make a clean neat break on a bottle that is hand blown into a mould? The answer is to make the lip and neck separately, and then ‘weld’ them together whilst the glass is still soft and malleable. If you look closely, you can see the join.

The arrow indicates the slightly bulbous join and groove where the bottle top (left) was joined to the bottle body (right). Often the joins are very obvious, with drips and messy welds, this is quite a good quality join.

This dates the bottle to the Victorian or very early 20th century, as does its light bluey-green colour, and rectangular shape. It is small, so is probably a lemonade syrup bottle or something similar.

I walked on.

Beautiful, wonderful, pieces of archaeology, tiny fragments of history, of people, were throwing themselves at me. And who was I to argue?

Lurking amongst the mud and mulch, a lucky dip.

You can make out the pattern, but what is it?

A soup dish and a saucer. For once, it’s not my photography! The transfer print itself is blurred and poor quality. Yes, I know, I know, a bad archaeologist blames his sherds.

Eventually I reached the end of the path, and on I went to the shop, vowing to come back that way, and walk in the other direction to see what else I could find. But, such is the way of the world, I needed to be elsewhere in Glossop and other chores distracted me, and with such mundanities crowding out the treasure, I didn’t come home that way. Who knows what I missed? Who knows what tiny fragments from the past await discovery, waiting for a person such as yourself, gentle reader, to pluck it from the ground and marvel over it, celebrating its form and colour, and invoking the past and the people who once used it. But beware… if you see an angry old lady with one ear, run.

The willow pattern in particular was interesting in that once cleaned I could make out knife marks that had scratched into the glaze.

A hard sharp knife has made these marks in the poor quality glaze. They were likely made in a single sitting, as they are all going in broadly the same direction. Perhaps cutting a particularly tough piece of meat from a bone?

Who knows what conversations were had when those marks were made, or what the person was eating. Questions like that keep me doing archaeological things like this.

Sherds not featured above, but found at the same time.

Nothing hugely interesting here, but all a bit of history. Top row, left, is a piece of porcelain that has a transfer picture on it – possibly of a woman (they’re quite predictable pictures – the golden brown bit could be hair or a gown). Next to that is a fragment of a stoneware ink pot. I wish I could show you how I know that, but from a photograph and using words it is difficult to describe – pottery is so tactile, so alive, you need your senses to ‘get’ it. Let’s just say size, shape, glaze, and feel, is what makes it so. Tell you what, I’ll film myself talking about it and put it on the YouTube channel, you’ll be able to see what I mean then. And I’m ignoring whoever it is that’s muttering “cure for insomnia” and “medical coma inducing nightmare“… bloody cheek. Bottom row, left, is a piece of moulded lead, with possible spokes coming from the outer rim. I have no idea what it is, but any suggestions would be welcome. All the other bits are fairly standard Victorian or early 20th century pottery.

Harehills Park (aka the ‘Sandhole’, or ‘People’s Park’) was for a long time prior to the 1920’s a tip for the local houses, so it’s not surprising this stuff comes to the surface after a good rainfall. It’s always produced something for me, and I’ve blogged about it before (here), but have a good look next time you are passing through. And post whatever you find to me – I’ll put it up on the website.

Right, that’s your lot for this post! More soon, I promise. But until then look after yourselves and each other. And I remain, your humble servant.