The mark of the Royal Pottery is sometimes the Royal Arms alone, and at others the Royal Arms surmounting a tablet with the name. There are also other potteries, where coarse common ware is produced, in the same neighbourhood.
Poole, Dorset.
The Architectural Pottery Company’s works were established in 1854 by Messrs. Thomas Sanders Ball, John Ridgway (china manufacturer, of Cauldon Place, Hanley), Thomas Richard Sanders, and Frederick George Sanders. In 1857, Mr. Ridgway retired from the concern and it was carried on by the remaining partners until 1861, when Mr. Thomas Sanders Ball also retired. Since then the works have been continued by Messrs. T. R. and F. G. Sanders alone. The Company produce patent coloured and glazed bricks and mouldings, semi-perforated and pressed; patent mosaic, tessellated, encaustic, vitreous, and white, blue, and other glazed wall tiles; embossed and perforated tiles; quarries and fire-clay goods, and other articles—the clays used being Purbeck clay, Cornish china clay, and Fareham clay, while those for plain quarries are from the Canford estate.
Figs. 808 to 811.
The encaustic paving tiles are of good design, many being carefully copied from mediæval examples, while others are new and of extremely good character—some being classic and others gothic. The colours used in the encaustic tiles are very varied and, in some instances, rich; red, buff, blue, chocolate, black, white, brown, green, &c., of different shades and of harmonious combinations. A speciality of these works are the tessellated tiles, under Bale’s patent process. These are literally formed of thin tesseræ of various colours, laid on and forming a part of the quarry itself. By this means all the richness and intricacy of the geometrical designs of tessellated pavements is produced, and at small trouble in laying down. Their character, as a rule, is better than the Italian tiles produced on the same general principle. These “tessellated tiles” possess every quality for general adoption, and no doubt will, in time, become, so to speak, acclimatised to this country. In quality the Architectural Pottery Company’s decorated tiles are not so hard and compact in body as some others are, but doubtless this can be improved upon.
The marks used by the company are:—