The Romans made pottery in Britain from native clay, and also imported much of the Samian ware. The Roman wares of British manufacture are known as Castor, Upchurch, and New Forest wares; they are generally of very good shapes, and are decorated with slips, dots, bosses, and indentations, and are unglazed or slightly glazed (Fig. 68).
Fig. 68.—Romano-British Urn, with Slip Decoration. (B.M.)
The Romano-British urn in the illustration has a slight yellow glaze. The pottery made by the Anglo-Saxons is of the same type and pattern as that made by the Saxons on the Continent. It is rough and inartistic in shape, except in some specimens that were made in the south of England, where an imitation of Roman and probably Norman pottery was attempted.
We do not meet much Saxon pottery in England of any importance until we come to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, when some of the best efforts in tile making and decoration are seen in the beautiful floor-tiles of the early Gothic period. Many examples of these tiles have been preserved in the British and other Museums, and some are still in sitû in Westminster Abbey, Malvern, Ely, and Gloucester Cathedrals, and Chertsey Abbey. The designs are often heraldic in character (Fig. 69), and consist of geometrical, floral, animal, and architectural forms. Badges, shields, and texts are also found as decorations, and sometimes the human figure is also represented. The earliest are of one colour, or two, as a yellow or a dull red, and the later ones have several colours. They are generally called “encaustic” tiles.
Fig. 69.—Encaustic Tile, from Monmouth Priory. (B.M.)
Slip wares were made extensively at Wrotham in Kent as early as 1650, and at Staffordshire, Derby, and other places in England even earlier than this date. Many of them are of quaint and uncouth forms, and are generally covered with a rich green, brown, or yellow glaze, made from copper, manganese, or iron oxides. Curious two-handled, three or four-handled mugs or tygs used for handing round drinks, posset cups or pots, plates, dishes, candlesticks, jugs, and piggins were made in these wares, and decorated with “slip,” which is a mixture of clay and water used in the thickness of cream, and which is dropped or trailed from a tube or spouted vessel, on the surface of the ware, forming the decoration according to the fancy of the designer. The colour of the slip varied from light to dark (Fig. 70).
Fig. 70.—Tyg of Wrotham Ware.