country pottery

The history of pottery stretches back into prehistoric times with the earliest known wares probably being produced in Japan at least 7000 years ago. Ever since pottery has been invaluable to man with its usefulness in the storage, preparation and consumption of food as well as for its decorative properties. 

Early pieces, produced  in Britain from about 5000 years ago, were of unglazed earthenware and it was not until the invention of glaze that pieces could be fully waterproofed. In the medieval period a green glaze was applied to wares which contained copper oxide and this made pots not only water resistant but also more pleasant to handle and use.  

The term country pottery is generally applied to wares produced during or after the medieval period often in potteries located in rural areas usually quite isolated  from other dwellings due to the fact that it was quite an antisocial practice. The clay had to be dug from unsightly pits and the pots fired in wood fuelled kilns which would have presented a fire hazard to the often thatched and timber framed houses of the period. The finished wares would then have been taken to a local market town and laid out on the street for sale on market days. This way the potter was able to distribute his wares to local householders and farms over an area of about 20 miles radius from the town. Some wares were also produced in built up areas probably where a brick yard existed already and the materials and kilns could be used to make pots as well.

Prior to the late fifteenth century the type of wares available in Britain were limited to mainly jugs bowls and cooking pots after this other items were coming in to the country from the continent which were soon copied by the British potter the most notable being  the cup which had previously been made from wood. In northern Britain wares came to resemble those from Holland and Germany and had red body with a brown glaze known as Cistercian Ware. In southern England the wares produced had more of a French influence having a green glaze and are known as Green Ware. 

In the second half of the sixteenth century the protestants were fleeing from persecution in Holland and so came to Britain to live. With them they brought a wide range of wares which were in general use in Holland at the time and it wasn’t long before these items were being demanded by the British. These included plates, again previously made from wood, ointment jars, candlesticks and chamber pots and were in general use in Britain during the early seventeenth century. They had a buff body with a creamy yellow glaze and were known as Midlands Yellow Wares. The technique of decoration known as slip trailing also came over at this time similar to icing a cake liquid clay is piped onto the ware and a design is created to decorate the piece. 

In the seventeenth century pot sellers were beginning to buy pots in large quantities from the potters and taking them further distances from the pottery for resale sometimes as far as a hundred or so miles. This meant that people had a wider range of wares available to them and could be more discerning over the quality which they were prepared to accept. Therefore trade suffered for potters who were in an area where the quality of the clay was not so good in favour of those in a better area. This was more noticeable in the Midlands and the north and potters started to move around the country to obtain better conditions. Many went to the stoke-on-Trent area where clay was good and plentiful and where the coal fields provided fuel for the kilns. Derbyshire also became a centre for pottery production. 

Towards the end of the seventeenth century wares were becoming more and more refined with Red Wares being made to imitate and compete with the Yixing wares which were being imported from china. Throughout the eighteenth century the pot making process was becoming more and more industrialized with businessmen turning production techniques into factory processes. 

Country pots were still being made at this time for those people who could not afford the refined and finely levigated wares. In the West country many potteries were still going strong often concentrating on more decorative and novelty wares such as fuddling cups, puzzle jugs and those with scrafitio decoration. Traditional wares for everyday use were still being produced though as well as making from pottery items that had previously been made from other materials such as cream pots, butter pots, milk bowls, cream pans and large pots for bread and for salting meet. 

This remained to be the case through the nineteenth century with traditional wares finding there place along side the more refined wares. Each had its purpose and place. Horticultural wares were produced on quite large scale with flower pots finding there place in many households also drainage pipes being made on a large scale. Towards the end of the nineteenth century the art pottery movement caught the imagination of the people and many country potteries took advantage of this and made wares to supply the demand. 

Much country pottery was made on a local scale by potters who would usually take part in every process of the manufacture of the ware from the digging and refining of the clay right through to the firing of the pot and even the sale of the finished wares. 

The pots were often used for many years until they got broken or stashed away in the back of a kitchen cupboard or shed perhaps to be rediscovered  years later and used as say a vase on a kitchen window ledge. Consequently wares have often remained in an area since manufacture with many families not moving away passing properties down to sons and daughters lock stock and barrel.  

In recent times however people are moving to different areas much more, the ease of transportation and the need for higher income in order to afford houses that are now out of the reach of many rural people combined with the influx of people from wealthier areas looking for a more peaceful life has meant that properties are now changing hands much more frequently. This has made it quite difficult to research the types of pots from a certain area.  

At one time if a piece was found in an area then there was a good chance that it was made there but now building up a picture is not as easy as it once was. This is a shame because there is still much work to be done in this interesting and under researched field of ceramic history. However when digging the garden it is often possible to find all sorts of shards (little fragments of pots) that have laid in the ground, for sometimes centuries, these can be invaluable to the researcher as an idea of the types of ware and the types of body used can be built up.  

Digs at known sites are also a good area of research and when I recently visited a dig at a site near me where clay pipes were once made it was surprising to see what other pottery was dug up as well including some Wrothem type wares. So remember next time you dig over the garden that those bits of old china could be of more importance than you think correctly catalogued and compiled they help to build up a picture of the land around us over the past few hundred years.