The potters here, for making coarse brown earthenware, are pretty
considerable, and the demand for the articles of their manufacture in
various parts of the kingdom, is constantly great ... The profits to
the manufacturers of this article are very great, which is evidenced
by several persons having risen within a few years, from a state of
the greatest obscurity and poverty, to wealth and consequence of no
small extent.
[Illustration: FIGURE 6.--Gravel-tempered oven of the 17th or early 18th
century, acquired in Bideford. (_USNM 394505._)]
[Illustration: FIGURE 7.--Gravel-tempered oven from 17th-century house on
Bideford Quay. Borough of Bideford Public Library and Museum. (_Photo by
A. C. Littlejohns._)]
Not only was coastwise trade in earthenware maintained throughout the 18th
century but it was continued, in fact, until the final decline of the
potteries at the turn of the present century.
Although great antiquity attaches to the origins of North Devon pottery
manufacture--Barnstaple has had its Crock Street for 450 years[30]--the
principal evidence of early manufacture falls into the second half of the
17th century. We have seen that a growing America provided an increasing
market for North Devon's ceramic wares. In 1668 Crocker's pottery was
established at Bideford, and it is in the period following that Bideford's
importance as a pottery center becomes noticeable. Crocker's was operated
until 1896, its dated 17th-century kilns then still intact after producing
wares that varied little during all of the pottery's 228 years of
existence.[31]
In Barnstaple the oldest pottery to survive until modern times was
situated in the North Walk. When it was dismantled in 1900, sherds dating
from the second half of the 17th century were found in the surroundings,
as was a potter's guild sign, dated 1675, which now hangs in Brannam's
pottery in Litchdon Street, Barnstaple. A pair of fire dogs, dated 1655
and shaped by molds similar to one from the North Walk site, was excavated
near the North Walk pottery.
Both Bideford and Barnstaple had numerous potteries in addition to
Crocker's and Brannam's. One, in Potter's Lane in the East-the-Water
section of Bideford, was still making "coarse plain ware" in 1906;[32] its
buildings were still standing in 1920. We have already observed that the
Litchdon Street works of C. H. Brannam, Ltd., remains in operation in a
modern building on the site of its 17th-century forerunner. Outside the
limits of the two large towns there were "a number of small pot works in
remote districts," including the parish of Fremington, where Fishley's
pottery, established in the 18th century, flourished until 1912.[33]
Jewitt states that the remains of five old potteries were found in the
location of Fishley's.[34]
[Illustration: FIGURE 8.--Views of opening of oven in figure 7,
photographed before its removal from house. This illustrates how oven was
built into corner of fireplace and concealed from view. At right, the oven
door is in place. (_Photos by A. C. Littlejohns._)]
The clay with which all the potters worked came from three similar deep
clay deposits in a valley running parallel with the River Taw in the
parishes of Tawstock and Fremington between Bideford and Barnstaple. A
geologist in 1864 wrote that the clay is "perfectly homogeneous ...
exceedingly tough, free from slightest grit and soft as butter."[35] When
fired at too high a temperature, he wrote, the clay would become so
vesicular that it would float on water. The kilns were bottle-shaped and,
according to tradition, originally were open at the top, like lime kilns;
the contents were roofed over with old crocks.[36]
Apparently all the potteries made the same types of wares, "coarse" or
common earthenware having comprised the bulk of their product. The
utilitarian red-ware was indeed coarse, since it was liberally tempered
with Bideford gravel in order to insure hardness and to offset the purity
and softness of the Fremington clay. An anonymous historian wrote in
1755:[37]
Just above the bridge [over the River Torridge] is a little ridge of
gravel of a peculiar quality, without which the potters could not make
their ware. There are many other ridges of gravel within the bar, but this
only is proper for their use.
John Watkins wrote that Bideford earthenware "is generally supposed to be
superiour to any other of the kind, and this is accounted for, from the
peculiar excellence of the gravel which this river affords, in binding the
clay." His claim that "this is the true reason, seems clear, from the fact
that though the potteries at Barnstaple make use of the same sort of clay,
yet their earthenware is not held in such esteem at Bristol, &c. as that
of Bideford"[38] is scarcely supportable, since the Barnstaple potters
also used the same Bideford gravel. The fire dogs found in Barnstaple with
the date 1655, referred to above, were tempered with this gravel, as were
"ovens, tiles, pipkins, etc.," in order "to harden the ware," according
to Charbonnier, who also observed that "The ware generally was very badly
fired.... From the fragments it can be seen that the firing was most
unequal, parts of the body being grey in colour instead of a rich red, as
the well-fired portions are." He noted that the potters applied "the
galena native sulphide of lead for the glaze, no doubt originally dusted
on to the ware, as with the older potters elsewhere."[39] A sherd of
gravel-tempered ware is displayed in the window of Brannam's Barnstaple
pottery, while a small pan from Bideford, probably of 19th-century origin,
is in the Smithsonian collections (USNM 394440).
[Illustration: FIGURE 9.--Gravel-tempered oven made at Crocker pottery,
Bideford, in the 19th century. Borough of Bideford Public Library and
Museum. (_Photo by A. C. Littlejohns._)]
[Illustration: FIGURE 10.--Restored gravel-tempered oven from Jamestown.
Colonial National Historical Park. (_National Park Service photo._)]
The most remarkable form utilizing gravel-tempered clay is found in the
baking ovens which remained a North Devon specialty for over two
centuries. These ovens vary somewhat in shape, and were made in graduated
sizes. Most commonly they are rectangular with domed superstructures,
having been molded or "draped" in sections, with their parts joined
together, leaving seams with either tooled or thumb-impressed
reenforcements. An oven obtained in Bideford has a flat top, without
visible seams (USNM 394505; fig. 6).
An early example occurs in Barnstaple, where, in a recently restored inn,
an oven was found installed at the side of a fireplace which is "late
sixteenth century in character." Pipes and a pair of woman's shoes, all
dating from the first half of the 18th century, were found in the
fireplace after it had been exposed, thus indicating the period of its
most recent use.[40] An oven discovered intact behind a wall during
alteration of a Bideford house is believed to date from between 1650 and
1675.[41] That oven (figs. 7, 8) is now exhibited in the Bideford Museum.
At the other extreme, C. H. Brannam of Barnstaple in 1890 was still making
ovens in the ancient North Walk pottery.[42] The following year H. W.
Strong wrote of Fishley's Fremington pottery that "shiploads of the big
clay ovens in which the Cornishman bakes his bread ... meet with a ready
sale in the fishing towns on the rugged coast of North Cornwall."[43]
Fremington ovens also were shipped to Wales,[44] and, according to Jewitt,
those made in the Crocker pottery in Bideford "are, and for generations
have been, in much repute in Devonshire and Cornwall, and in the Welsh
districts, and the bread baked in them is said to have a sweeter and more
wholesome flavour than when baked in ordinary ovens."[45]
[Illustration: FIGURE 11.--Sgraffito-ware platters from Jamestown. The
platter shown above has a diameter of 15 inches; the others, 12 inches.
Colonial National Historical Park.]
Of ovens made at Barnstaple there is much the same kind of evidence. In
1851, Thomas Brannam exhibited an oven at the Crystal Palace, where it
was described as "generally used in Devonshire for baking bread and
meat."[46] In 1786, "Barnstaple ovens" were advertised for sale in Bristol
at M. Ewers' "Staffordshire, Broseley, and Glass Warehouse."[47]
Thirty-six years earlier, in 1750, Dr. Pococke, who indefatigably entered
every sort of observation in his journal, noted that in Devonshire and
Cornwall "they make great use here of Cloume ovens,[48] which are of
earthen ware of several sizes, like an oven, and being heated they stop
'em up and cover 'em over with embers to keep in the heat."[49] Pococke
visited Calstock, "where they have a manufacture of coarse earthenware,
and particularly of earthenware ovens."[50] We have encountered only one
other instance of ovens having been made at any place other than the North
Devon communities around the Fremington clay beds. Calstock lies some 35
miles below Bideford in the southeast corner of Cornwall, just over the
Devonshire boundary.
As for evidence concerning the manner in which these ovens were used in
England, we have already seen that they were built into houses. Jewitt
wrote that they "are simply enclosed in raised brickwork, leaving the
mouth open to the front." They were heated until red hot by sticks or
logs, which were then raked out with long iron tongs.[51] A bundle of
gorse, or wood, according to Jewitt,[52] was sufficient to "thoroughly
bake three pecks of dough." Pococke's remarks to the effect that the ovens
were covered over with embers to keep in the heat suggests that they were
sometimes freestanding. However, this could also have been the practice
when ovens were built into fireplaces.
From an esthetic point of view, the crowning achievement of the North
Devon potters was their sgraffito ware, examples of which in Brannam's
window display have already been noted. Further evidence in the form of
17th-century sherds was found by Charbonnier around the site of the North
Walk pottery in Barnstaple. These consisted of "plates and dishes of
various size and section.... Extensive as the demand for these dishes must
have been, judging from the heap of fragments, not a single piece has to
my knowledge been found above ground."[53] The apparently complete
disappearance of the sgraffito table wares suggests that they ceased to be
made about 1700. They were apparently forced from the market by the
refinement of taste that developed in the 18th century and by the
delftware of Bristol and London and Liverpool that was so much more in
keeping with that taste.
However, certain kinds of sgraffito ware continued to be made without
apparent interruption until early in the present century. Instead of
useful tableware, decorated with symbols and motifs characteristic of
17th-century English folk ornament, we find after 1700 only presentation
pieces, particularly in the form of large harvest jugs. The harvest jugs
were made for annual harvest celebrations, when they were passed around by
the farmers among their field hands in a folk ritual observed at the end
of harvest.[54] Unlike the sgraffito tablewares, where style and taste
were deciding factors in their survival, these special jugs were intended
to be used only in annual ceremonies. Thus they were carefully preserved
and passed on from generation to generation, with a higher chance for
survival than that which the sgraffito tablewares enjoyed.
The style of the harvest jugs is in sharp contrast to that of the
tablewares, the jugs having been decorated in a pagan profusion of
fertility and prosperity symbols, mixed sometimes with pictorial and
inscriptive allusions to the sea, particularly on jugs ascribed to
Bideford. The oldest dated examples embody characteristics of design and
techniques that relate them unmistakably to the tablewares, while later
specimens made throughout the 18th and 19th centuries show an increasing
divergence from the 17th-century style. An especially elaborate piece was
made for display at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal
Palace.[55]
Less complicated pieces, with a minimum of incising, were made for
ordinary use, as were plain pieces whose surfaces were covered with slip
without decoration. The trailing and splashing of slip designs on the body
of the ware, practiced in Staffordshire and many of our colonial
potteries, apparently was not followed in North Devon.[56]