Brislington.
About a century ago, I am informed, there was a pottery at St. Ann’s, in this parish, conducted by a family named Macken. The older productions are described as “a drab-coloured ware with a plum-coloured glaze; the more modern were the same ware covered with a layer resembling porcelain; white, and apparently of felspar, this kind has almost invariably a rough blue pattern.” One of the Macken family had a pottery in Bristol.
A manufactory formerly existed at this place, and the ware produced may be described as very closely approaching, in general appearance and effect, the common descriptions of Turkish pottery. The patterns were produced, in coarse and rude designs, in a kind of copper or red lustre, on the plain buff clay ground. Examples are somewhat rare. The works were carried on by Richard Frank, of Bristol, and his family, but were closed in the latter part of last century. The works, which were of course but small, still stand, but are converted into cottages. “They are situated at the bottom of St. Ann’s Wood, between St. Ann’s Vale and the river, on a line about half a mile beyond Netham Dam,” and opposite to Crewshole. Some good examples of this ware, which is remarkably clumsy and coarse, but very curious, are preserved in the Bristol Museum (Fig. [804]). The circular dish is fourteen inches in diameter with a small centre of nine inches. On its back is the rude monogram (Fig. [805]) of Richard Frank, its maker.
Figs. 804 and 805.