Historical Background

Barnstaple and its neighbor Bideford are today quiet market centers and summer resorts. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, by contrast, they were deeply involved in trade with America and with the whole West of England interest in colonial settlement. Bideford was the home of Sir Richard Grenville, who, with Sir Walter Raleigh, was one of the first explorers of Virginia. As the leading citizen of Bideford, Grenville obtained from Queen Elizabeth a modern charter of incorporation for the town. Consequently, according to the town’s 18th-century chronicler, “Bideford rose so rapidly as to become a port of importance at the latter end of Queen Elizabeth’s reign ... when the trade began to open between England and America in the reign of King James the First, Bideford early took a part in it.”[4] Its orientation for a lengthy period was towards America, and the welfare of its inhabitants was therefore largely dependent upon commerce with the colonies.

In common with other West of England ports, Barnstaple and Bideford engaged heavily in the Newfoundland fishing trade. However, “the principal part of foreign commerce that Bideford was ever engaged in, was to Maryland and Virginia for tobacco.... Its connections with New England were also very considerable.”[5]

During the first half of the 18th century Bideford’s imports of tobacco were second only to London’s, but the wars with France caused a decline about the year 1760.[6] Barnstaple, situated farther up the River Taw, followed the pattern of Bideford in the rise and decline as well as the nature of its trade. Although rivals, both towns functioned in effect as a single port; Barnstaple and Bideford ships sailed from each other’s wharves and occasionally the two ports were listed together in the Port Books. As early as 1620 seven ships, some of Bideford and some of Barnstaple registry, sailed from Barnstaple for America,[7] but the height of trade between North Devon and the colonies occurred after the Restoration and lasted until the early part of the 18th century. In 1666, for example, the Samuel of Bideford and the Philip of Barnstaple sailed for Virginia, despite the dangers of Dutch warfare.[8] The following year, on August 13, 1667, it was reported that 20 ships of the Virginia fleet, “bound to Bideford, Barnstaple, and Bristol have passed into the Severn in order to escape Dutch men-of-war.”[9] Later, in 1705, we find that the Susanna of Barnstaple, as well as the Victory, Zunt, Devonshire, Laurell, Blackstone, and Mary and Hannah, all of Bideford, were anchored in Hampton Roads off Kecoughtan. They comprised one-ninth of a fleet of 63 ships from various English ports.[10]

Figure 4.—Old pottery in Torrington Lane (formerly Potter’s Lane), East-the-Water section of Bideford. The photo was taken in 1920, just before the buildings were razed. (Courtesy of Miss M. E. Jenkinson.)

Aside from such indications of a well-established mercantile trade, the entrenchment of North Devon interests in the colonies is repeatedly shown in other ways. Before 1645, Thomas Fowle, a Boston merchant, was doing business with his brother-in-law, Vincent Potter, who lived in Barnstaple.[11] In 1669, John Selden, a Barnstaple merchant, died after consigning a shipment of goods to William Burke, a merchant of Chuckatuck, Virginia. John’s widow and administratrix, Sisely Selden, brought suit to recover these goods, which were “left to the sd. W^m Burke, &c., for the use of my late husband.”[12] Burke was evidently an agent, or factor, who acted in Virginia on Selden’s behalf. In Northampton County, alone, there resided six Bideford factors, remarkable when one considers the isolated location of this Virginia Eastern Shore county and the sparseness of its population in the 17th century.[13] John Watkins, the Bideford historian, adds further evidence of mercantile involvement with the colonies, stating of Bideford that “some of its chief merchants had very extensive possessions in Virginia and Maryland.”[14] Both in New England and the southern colonies, local merchants acted as resident agents for merchants based in the mother country. Often tied to the latter by bonds of family relationship, the factors arranged the exchange of American raw materials for the manufactured goods in which their English counterparts specialized.

That there was a large and important commerce in North Devon earthenware to account for many of the relationships between Bideford, Barnstaple, and the colonies seems to have remained unnoticed. Indeed, the fact that the two towns comprised an important center of earthenware manufacture and export in the 17th century has hitherto received little attention from ceramic historians, and then merely as sources of picturesque folk pottery. Yet in the excavations of colonial sites and in the British Public Records Office are indications that the North Devon potters, for a time at least, rivaled those of Staffordshire.

The earliest record of North Devon pottery reaching America occurs in the Port Book entry for Barnstaple in 1635, when the Truelove, Vivian Limbry, master, sailed on March 4 for New England with “40 doz. earthenware,” consigned to John Boole, merchant.[15] The following year the same ship sailed for New England with a similar amount. After the Stuart restoration larger shipments of earthenware are recorded, as illustrated by sample listings (below) chosen from Port Books in the British Public Records Office.

Typical Shipments of Earthenware from North Devon

(Sample entries from Port Books, verbatim)

BARNSTAPLE 1665 [16]

Date	Ship	Master	For	In Cargo	Subsidy
					s d
26 Aug 1665	Exchange of Biddeford	W^m Titherly	New England	150 doz. of Earthenware	7-6

4 Sept 1665	Philipp of Biddeford	Edmond Prickard	Virginia	30 doz. of Earthenware	1-6

28 Nov 1665	Providence of Barnstaple	Nicholas Taylor	Virginia	20 doz. of Earthenware	1-0

BARNSTAPLE AND BIDEFORD, 1680 [17]

Date	Ship	Master	Shipment
Aug 6^th 1680	Forester of Barnstaple, for Maryland	Christopher Browning	Twenty dozen of Earthenware Subsidy 1/

Sept 6	Loyalty of Barnstaple	Philip Greenslade	30 dozen of Earthenware Andrew Hopkins, merchant Subsidy 1/6

BARNSTAPLE, 1681 [18]

Date	Ship	Master	To	Goods & Merchants
May 30 1681	Seafare of Bideford	Bartholomew Shapton	New England	Forty-two hundred [weight] parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 7/

28 June	Hopewell of Bideford	Peter Prust	Virginia	30 cwt. parcells of Earthenware Peter Luxeron Merchant Subsidy 5/

Aug. 12	Beginning of Bideford	John Limbry	Virginia	15 cwt. parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 2/6 Richard Corkhill Merchant [19]

BIDEFORD, 1681 [20]

Date	Ship	Master	To	Goods
21 June	Beginning of Bideford	Thomas Phillips	Virginia	Thirty hundred pclls of Earthenware Joseph Conor merchant Subsidy 5/

19 July	John & Mary of Bideford	Thomas Courtis	Maryland	750 parcells of Earthenware John Barnes, Merchant Subsidy 1/3

14 Aug	Exchange of Bideford	George Ewings	Maryland	40 dozen earthenware William Titherly Merchant Subsidy 2/

Aug. 22	Merchants Delight of Bideford	William Britten	Virginia	1500 parcells Earthenware Henry Guiness Merchant Subsidy 2/6

Aug. 23	Hart of Bideford	Henry Penryn	Virginia	1500 parcells of Earthenware John Lord Merch^t Subsidy 2/6

1682—BARNSTAPLE [21]

Date		Ship		Master		To		Cargo, etc.
Michaelmas Quarter		Robert & William of North^am		John Esh		Maryland		30 dozen Earthenware Subsidy 1/6 William Bishop merchant

BIDEFORD 1682—OUTWARDS [22]

Date	Ship	Master	To	Cargo, etc.
May 15	Seafare of Bideford	John Titherley	New England	42 cwt. parcells of Earthenware Barth. Shapton Merchant Subsidy 7/

July 9	John & Mary of Bideford	Thomas Courtis	Maryland	9 cwt parcells of Earthenware John Barnes Merchant Subsidy 1/6

July 20	Merchant’s Delight of Bideford	William Bruston	Maryland	6 cwt parcells of Earthenware Samuel Donnerd merchant

Sept. 11	Exchange of Bideford	Mark Chappell	Maryland	30 cwt. parcells of earthenware Subsidy 5/ William Titherly Merchant

BARNSTAPLE/BIDEFORD OUTWARDS 1690 [23]

Date	Ship	Master	To	Cargo, etc.
Aug. 23	Yarmouth of Bideford	Roger Jones	Maryland	300 parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 6^d

Sept. 11	Expedition of Bideford	Humphrey Bryant	Maryland	1,200 parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 2/

Sept. 23	Integrity of Bideford	John Tucker	Maryland	300 parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 6^d

Sept. 23	Happy Return of Bideford	John Rock	Maryland	750 parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 1/3

Sept. 23	Sea Faire of Bideford	Tym. Brutton	Maryland	1800 parcells of Earthenware Subsidy 3/

BARNSTAPLE & BIDEFORD 1694 [24]

Date		Ship		Master		To		Cargo, etc.		Subsidy
Dec. 6		Happy Returne		John Hartwell		Maryland		450 parcels of Earthen ware		9d

Another source shows that the Eagle of Bideford arrived at Boston from her home port on October 11, 1688, with a cargo consisting entirely of 9,000 parcels of earthenware, while on July 28, 1689, the Freindship (sic) of Bideford landed 7,200 parcels of earthenware and one hogshead of malt. On August 24 of the same year the Delight brought a cargo of “9,000 parcels of earthenware and 2 fardells of dry goods” from Bideford.[25]

It will be noted that there was a close relationship between vessel, shipmaster, and factor, suggesting that there may have been an equally close connection between all of them and the owners of the potteries. The Exchange, for instance, seems to have been regularly employed in the transport of earthenware. In 1665, according to the listings, she sailed to New England under command of William Titherly. By 1681 Titherly had become a Maryland factor to whom the Exchange’s earthenware was consigned then and in 1682. In the same way Bartholomew Shapton in 1681 sailed as master on the Sea Faire with earthenware to New England, becoming in the following year the factor for earthenware sent on the same ship under command of John Titherly.

The proportion of earthenware cargo to the carrying capacity of the usual 17th-century ocean-going ship, which ranged from about 30 to 50 tons, is difficult to estimate. A ton and a half of milk pans nested in stacks would be compact and would occupy only a small amount of space. A similar weight of ovens might require a much larger space. When earthenware shipments are recorded in terms of parcels, we are again left in doubt, since the sizes of the parcels are not indicated. We know, however, that the Eagle, which was a 50-ton ship, carried 9,000 parcels of earthenware as her sole cargo in 1688, in contrast to the much smaller amounts shown in the sample listings where the parcel standard is used. Yet even a typical shipment of 1,500 parcels, with each parcel containing an indeterminate number of pots, must have filled the needs of many kitchens when delivered in Virginia in 1681. Certainly a shipment such as this suggests a vigorous rate of production and an active trade.

The export of earthenware from North Devon was not solely to America. As early as 1601 there were shipped from Barnstaple to “Dublyn—100 dozen Earthen Pottes of all sorts.” In later years, selected at random, we find the following shipments to Ireland from Barnstaple listed in the Public Record Office Port Books: 1617, 290 dozen; 1618, 320 dozen; 1619, 322 dozen; 1620, 508 dozen; 1632, 260 dozen; 1635, 300 dozen; 1636, 480 dozen; 1639, 660 dozen. Typical of the destinations were Kinsale, Youghal, Limerick, Cork, Galway, Coleraine, and Waterford. As the century advanced, this trade increased enormously. In 1694, 17 separate earthenware shipments totaling 50,400 parcels were made from Barnstaple and Bideford to Dublin, Wexford, and Waterford.[26] It is possible that some of these cargoes were shipped to America, since it was necessary to list only the first port of entry. However, the rapid turnaround of many of the ships shows this was not usually the case.

Besides Ireland, Bristol and Exeter were destinations in a busy coastwise trade. In 1681, for example, large quantities of earthenware, tobacco pipes, and pipe clay were sent to these places.[27] Bristol merchants probably re-exported some of the earthenware to America.

Figure 5.—Map of Barnstaple. Reproduced from J. B. Gribble, Memorials of Barnstaple, 1830.

The coastwise trade appears to have diminished very little as time passed. In 1755, The Gentlemen’s Magazine carried an account of Bideford, stating:[28]

Great quantities of potters ware are made, and exported to Wales, Ireland, and Bristol.... In the parish of Fremington are great quantities of reddish potters’ clay, which are brought and manufactured at Biddeford, whence the ware is sent to different places by sea.

John Watkins, in 1792, wrote:[29]

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.


Figure 6.—Gravel-tempered oven of the 17th or early 18th century, acquired in Bideford. (USNM 394505.)		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]


Figure 8.—Views of opening of oven in figure 7,photographed before its removal from house. This illustrates how oven wasbuilt into corner of fireplace and concealed from view. At right, the ovendoor 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).


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.)		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]




		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]