THE BLACKWATER VALLEY POTTERIES

Written by Don Ridgers in the mid 1980s for the Yateley History Project

See also Evidence for Potteries from Wills & Inventories a lecture by Don Ridgers of the Yateley History Project to the North East Hampshire Archaeological Society. Don Ridgers' pioneering paper explains the project in the early 1980s to transcribe all Yateley wills and inventories dated from 1558 to 1700. The Parish of Yateley then included Cove and Hawley where the potteries were situated. The discovery of so many inventories including references to pottery manufacture was a major success of the Yateley History Project, and enabled me quickly to up-load many Yateley wills & inventories onto this website. Wills & inventories transcribed by the YHP team have been referenced. PJT

Background

As fragments of pottery are extremely durable they often represent the only lasting evidence of early occupation of an area. Sparse scattered finds indicate waste tips associated with early settlements but extensive finds are generally the waste products at the place of manufacture. Archeological investigation of such waste sites occasionally reveals much of the workings of the old potteries identifying kiln bases, remnants of clay stocks, spilt glazes etc. Several pottery sites and suspected pottery sites have been excavated in the Farnborough and Cove area in recent years and it is evident that pottery was a prominant local industry for several centuries.

The earliest pottery site so far identified and excavated in the Farnborough and Cove area has been magneticly dated as early 14th Century. The site is located off Ship Lane in Farnborough (see Fig 1 site 1). The kiln base was located in excavations carried out by North East Hampshire Archeolocical Society (N.E.H.A.S.). Other kilns nearby indicate that a pottery operated here for about five centuries although it is uncertain that production was continuous.

All the known and strongly suspected pottery sites (in the mid 1980s) can be accessed by clicking this link.

Produce

The broken pottery unearthed in the excavation of the earliest kiln site, is of a gritty texture, mostly grey in colour. It is likely that the main produce was cooking pots. No whole vessels were found.

Finds at a 15th Century site at Farnborough Hill Convent (Ref1) included lobed cups and other drinking vessels of very thin white ware with a fine texture. An apple green glaze was used on some of the wares.

The produce from the 16th and 17th Century sites encompassed a wide range of objects, including plates, bowls, jugs, various cooking pots, storage jars, chamber pots, candlesticks and money boxes. Not every product was produced by every kiln but the whole spectrum was covered within the district. Through this period pottery of all colours was produced including red, white, buff and pink. The earlier part of the period was dominated by white ware, typified by the green glazed white ware known as Farnham ware or Tudor Green. All output was predominantly red by the end of the 17th Century and yellow, green and brown glazes were in use.

The production of predominantly red ware continued through the 18th Century and into the 19th Century with the local industry declining rapidly towards the end of this period.

Markets

In the early period most pottery produced was probably for local use although some wider trade is recorded e.g. the carting of Farnborough pottery to the royal stews or bath house at Windsor in 1391 (ref 2). From the 16th century onwards large quantities were sent to London and Tudor Green ware, probably made locally, is frequently found there.

Clay

Throughout the period over which potteries operated in Cove and Farnborough a wide variety of clays were used, however each kiln site appears to have used a limited range for its own produce i.e. some kilns produced predominantly white ware and others red depending on the fashion and product at the time each kiln operated.

An examination of the location of the 21 known or strongly suspected pottery sites relative to the underlying geology of the area shows that virtually all of them are sited on the Bracklesham Beds (see Fig 2). These beds are a Tertiary deposit consisting of a series of silty sands and clays. The natural colour of the clays can be green, blue, orange, yellow, pink, grey or white. When fired in a kiln the iron present in the green, blue, orange and yellow clays causes the fired clay to become red, brown or orange. The pink, grey and white clays fire cream/pink or near white ( i.e. not as bright as modern china clay). There is a good correlation between this spectrum and the colour of the 16th and 17th century pottery from this area in the collection at Guildford museum.

There is also evidence that Clay was brought from deposits in the Reading Beds at Farnham Old Park and Tongham. This occurred particularly in the 19th century, although the source was known in the 14th century. The Reading Beds clays are broadly similar to the Bracklesham Bed clays and include clay of a mottled red appearance which would fire red, and grey/white or blue/white clay which fires nearly white.

Most of the potters whose wills and inventories have been studied owned "picking stocks" which implies they dug their own clay for example in the will of Robert Wright of Cove in 1596 there is this bequest:

Other inventories hint that there must have been trade in clay by the way it is valued as in the inventory of Robert Hasell in 1662 which includes:

Clearly white clay was more expensive than red in 1662.

Fuel

Little evidence has been discovered to establish the fuel used by the earliest potters to dry their ware and then fire it. The inventories of the 16th and 17th century potters show that at this time the principal fuel was wood. Stocks of wood form a substantial proportion of the value of the potters assets.

John Durgatt, a Cove Potter who died in June 1622, possessed 30 loads of wood each valued at 2s.6d. That is £3 15s 0d from total assets of £22 12s 6d. None of the potters whose inventories have been studied owned any peat or turves at the time of their death, nor the implements to cut it, although inventories of local residents in other occupations show that turves were widely used as a domestic fuel and large stacks of turves were commonplace. Alice Minchin (see also John Barum, cupmaker of Yateley - PJT) who died in August 1670 had 4000 turves valued at 10s. among the possessions listed in her inventory. Many people owned turfing irons and turf baskets at this time.

The type of wood burned in the kilns and the way in which it was obtained is still uncertain. For the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries the potteries had sufficient output that they could not have relied on the waste timber from other occupations so it is likely that wood was specifically grown for fuelling the kilns. Two ways have been suggested which suit the conditions in this region and both were probably used.

1) Gorse areas were burned to clear the thorns and light flammable undergrowth from areas of heath. Then the more resilliant gorse wood which remained could be cut, collected and allowed to dry out before burning in the kilns. This practice would also promote the growth of new heather allowing the area to be grazed.

2) Hardwoods such as beech and chestnut were coppiced and cropped at about three year intervals when the new wood was about 50mm. diameter, then stacked and dried as above.

Both methods produce wood of a size that can be readily cut to any required length with a hatchet and would not need to be split. The inventory of Robert Hasell, a Cove potter who died in January 1662 (old calendar - PJT) reveals that the matter is more complicated and that each potter probably made different arrangements for fuel.

Hasell's wood comprised "two lode of stame wood: one lode and a halfe of billit: partree wood and other wood £1 5s 6d"

By the 19th century turf was being used by the potters to heat the drying sheds and peat and timber trimmings were used to fire the kilns.

Methods

Surprisingly few changes in method have been established over the whole period in which the potteries operated in Farnborough and Cove. The raw clay was pounded with a wooden mortar in a wooden tub, water was added and the stones were allowed to settle to the bottom of the mixture. The clay was then drained to a suitable moisture content to achieve the required consistency for potting. If necessary sand would be added, particularly for the gritty ware produced in the earlier period or to reduce cracking in the coarser ware produced in the later period. For the coarser 19th century ware the mixing was sometimes carried out by treading the clay and sand in a pit with the water, picking out the stones by hand.

The prepared clay was then thrown on a treadle-operated potters wheel and shaped by the skill of the potters fingers to form the pots. To maintain continuity of product shapes, the potters had wooden templates or patterns which they could offer up to the unfinished pot while it was still on the wheel and then modify the pot accordingly.

Some pots had decorative patterns pressed onto them at this stage, small circular imprints and zig zag lines made with a comb being the most popular.

The pot was then removed from the wheel using either a thin blade or string and carefully placed on a board in a drying shed generally referred to as a hothouse or furnice shed until the clay dried hard.

The potting wheels were often in the same room as the drying pots in the 16th to 18th centuries but they were generally separate by the 19th century.

There is no evidence that the pots were biscuit fired before the application of glaze although this cannot be ruled out particularly in the middle of the period during which the glazes were applied in liquid form (ref 3).

The glazes were prepared from lead which the potters melted and continued to heat until lead oxide formed on the surface. This lead oxide was raked off and powdered in a small pestle with an iron or brass mortar. At the earliest potteries the glaze was applied as a powder by hand, by the 17th century the glaze was mixed with water and applied by dipping or by brush, by the early 19th century the glazes were again being applied by hand as powder and this was phased out by the middle of that century.

The plain lead glaze would be yellow, but impurities of copper produce green and manganese or iron produce brown. All these were in use throughout, the proportion of each dependant on the product and contemporary fashion. In many cases all three main types are used on the same piece for decorative effect. A further decorative feature sometimes included, particularly in the 17th century was the application of crushed flint fragments to produce a heavily textured surface on the outside of drinking vessels.

After further drying (if necessary) the pots were stacked in the kiln which was a roughly circular brick structure with one or more ports. Wood or turf as appropriate was added to load the kiln and when lit the kiln was allowed to burn for several days, being re-stoked as necessary, then it was allowed to cool over a period of about a week before the pots could be removed.

The Potters

While the pottery industry was widespread and a large proportion of the population were employed within it, the individual potteries were small, typically farm based and each employing two or three people. Some were freeholders which in Cove allowed them to excavate clay from Cove Common. Others were tenants whose rights varied. Most of the potters whose inventories have been studied were also involved in farming activities. This mix of farming and other occupation is common throughout rural communities.

The pottery equipment owned by a typical 16th or 17th century potter would include:

• 2 potting wheels
• 100 working boards
• 2 wooden moulds to print the pots
• a hatchet
• a wooden mortar
• a picking stock
• a wheelbarrow
• sieves
• buckets
• moulding boards
• 100 kiln boards
• a kiln
• 20 loads of wood
• 2 loads of clay
• lead
• finished pots
• unfired pots

Additionally he would own the general household goods, livestock etc. used in the period.

References

1 A Preliminary Note on the Pottery Industry of the Hampshire-Surrey Borders by F.W.Holling, B.A.,A.M.A. published in the Surrey Archeological Collection.

2 L.F.Salzman, Building in England (1952), 276.

3 The Excavation of a 17th Century Pottery Site At Cove, E. Hampshire, by Jeremy Haslam. Post Medieval Archeology Vol 9 1975.

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