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]
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| 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]