CHAPTER XII.
Nottingham Ware—List of Potters—Nottingham Mugs—Bears—Lowesby—Coalville—Ibstock—Tamworth—Wilnecote—Coventry—Nuneaton—Broxburne—Stamford—Roman Kiln—Blasfield’s Terra-Cotta—Bolingbroke—Wisbech—Lowestoft and Gunton—Delft Ware—Lowestoft China—Stowmarket—Ipswich—Ebbisham—Wrotham—Yarmouth—Cossey—Cadborough—Rye—Gestingthorpe—Holkham—Nuneham Courtney—Marsh Balden—Horspath—Shotover.
Nottingham.
That pottery and encaustic paving-tiles were made at Nottingham during mediæval times is abundantly proved by the discovery, in April, 1874 (when digging the foundations for the Methodist New Connection chapel), of kilns and examples of tiles and domestic vessels. Of this discovery Mr. A. J. Sully gives me the following account:—
“As the men were excavating on the site of the old Parliament Street Chapel at the lower corner of George Street, they came on an old kiln, in and near which they found jars, jugs, and flat-bottomed pots of mediæval manufacture, varying from six to sixteen inches in height and from two to nine inches in diameter; they are all of a red clay body, with the upper portion of the outside covered with green salt glaze. They afterwards found three other kilns and more pieces of the same description, and a number of fragments of encaustic tiles with coats of arms on, and one or two with inscriptions. In the same place, they also found a number of silver pennies of Edward I., II., and III., a few Irish types of Edward I., and pennies of Alexander of Scotland. But what proves most conclusively that there was a pottery there, is the fact that nearly all the pieces found are faulty, having been either broken, or fallen in shape in the oven, and therefore thrown aside; and the coins, tiles, and pottery being all of the same period, prove that the works must have been in existence as early as the latter part of the fourteenth century. One of the vessels is probably unique; it is of the shape of an inverted water-bottle, and has a face in relief on each side—though for what use it was intended I am unable to conjecture, as it has an opening at the bottom as well as at the top. They were all found within four feet of the surface, the walls of the chapel having been built all round the place; but there being no internal walls of any kind, the enclosed land had not been disturbed before. Some kilns and fragments of a similar kind were discovered about fifty years ago, when excavations were being made on the site of St. Paul’s church, which is also situated in Broad Street, but at a distance of about three hundred yards from where this last find took place; so that the works would seem to have been of a very extensive character, and to have covered a large space of ground.”
The vessels seem to be of very much the same general character and period as those found at Burley Hill, described on pages 78 and 79. They consist principally of pitchers of almost identical form with those engraved on Figs. [266 to 269] and [272] and [274]. The most remarkable is the one described by Mr. Sully as bearing a mask on either side.
In 1641 there appears, from a list of trades compiled in that year and given by Dering, to have been only one master-potter at Nottingham. In 1693 “glass-pots”—i.e. crucibles for glass makers—were made of Derbyshire crouch clay. This is thus alluded to by Houghton in that year, “clay with flat or thin sand glittering with mica. Crouch white clay, Derbyshire, of which the glass pots are made at Nottingham.”
In the beginning of last century Mr. Charles Morley was a manufacturer of brown glazed earthenware in Nottingham. His works were in the lower part of Beck Street, on the way to St. Ann’s Well. Mr. Morley, who amassed a very considerable fortune by his pottery, built for himself the large house in Beck Lane, which was afterwards occupied by his son, the late Mr. Charles Lomas Morley, and still later used as the Government School of Design. In 1737 Mr. Charles Morley, the potter, was one of the Sheriffs of Nottingham. One of his principal branches of manufacture was in brown ware ale-mugs, for the ale-houses of the district, and in pitchers, and other domestic utensils. In 1739, according to a list of trades in that year, there were two master-potters in Nottingham.
Dering, who wrote his “Nottingamia vetus et nova” in 1751, says that at that time Nottingham sends down the river Trent “coals, lead, timber, corn, wool, and potter’s ware.”
In 1772–4 it is stated, in a curious and scarce little work, “A Short Tour in the Midland Counties of England,” that at Nottingham “the making of glass wares is laid aside, and that of pots become very trifling; but here are some small silk mills and also a few on the same principle for cotton, lately erected.”