London Road.—In 1856 a field on the London Road was found to contain a valuable mine of red clay, and a manufactory of floor, roof, and ridge tiles, &c., was commenced. This property was purchased by Mr. W. Kirkham, who still continues the works. In 1862 Mr. Kirkham built a manufactory for the production of Parian, terra cotta, and general earthenware for the home and foreign markets. To this he has more recently added the making of door-furniture, brass-founders’ fittings, knobs, mortars and pestles, chemists’ goods, stoneware, &c.; a patent is also worked for the production of porcelain bottle-stoppers, feeding-bottles, &c. The terra cotta goods, comprising water-bottles, ornamental flower-pots and stands, table-jugs, spill-cases, tobacco-jars, and an infinite variety of other articles, are of a high degree of excellence, both in body, in form, in colour, and in style of ornamentation. In colour it is of a deep, rich, full red, and is remarkably close, compact, hard, and durable in texture. The ornamentation consists of embossed borders of more than average relief; printed groups of Etruscan figures, borders, groups of flowers, &c.; rich enamelling in various colours; and dead and burnished gilding. Some of the fern decorations are graceful, natural, and elegant; and those with the Etruscan figures and the enamelled borders are in pure taste. The table-jugs are of excellent form, many being good examples of severe Art, and their decorations are faultless.
The Campbell Brick and Tile Company.—The company to whom this manufactory belongs was formed in 1875 for the purpose of carrying on the business of Mr. Robert Minton Taylor, who had till that time conducted it at Fenton. A new manufactory was, in 1876, erected at Stoke, when the Fenton business was transferred to it. In addition to this, new buildings and machinery have been erected for the production of all kinds of bricks, roofing and other building tiles, &c. The works were established at Fenton, as just stated, by Mr. Robert Minton Taylor—nephew to the late Mr. Herbert Minton, and until the past few years a partner in the firm of Minton, Hollins & Co.—in 1868, on a dissolution, consequent on effluxion of time, of the old firm. The productions of these works, as were those at Fenton, are encaustic, mosaic, geometrical, and majolica tiles, and in these every variety of design, from the purely ornate to the severe classic, are made.
The encaustic tiles are produced not only in the usually simple red and buff colours, but also in various combinations of buff, red, blue, green, yellow, white, black, brown, grey, and every shade of compound colour. The designs are very effective and pure, and are the result of considerable study on the part of the artists employed in their preparation. The geometric tiles are of every conceivable form and of great variety in colour; they are prepared with mathematical nicety, and produce remarkably rich and effective pavements.
One of the specialities of these works are majolica and coloured tiles. These are of the highest possible class of beauty and excellence, and the richness of the colours and their harmonious combinations cannot be surpassed: they are perfect works of Art, and are a great and marked advance upon any which have preceded them. Some have the ornament in relief—sometimes approaching even to alto-relievo—and exquisitely modelled: the ornament consisting of arabesques, foliage, flowers, birds, &c., in endless variety. In reproduction of natural objects, as the hawthorn, the bramble, the violet, the primrose, the anemone, the lily, and the lilac, Mr. Minton Taylor is particularly happy: the effect is strikingly beautiful. The tiles, of course, are adapted for wall decorations of churches, &c., for ceilings, grate-cheeks, lining of fire-places, flower-boxes, friezes, inlaying in cabinet work, &c., but not for floors.
Figs. 331 to 338.—Campbell & Co.’s Tiles.
Figs. 339 and 340.—Campbell & Co.’s Tiles.
Among the other features of these works are the tesselated pavements, which are careful reproductions of examples of the Romano-British period. In these the antique character is well preserved, the designs copied with scrupulous accuracy, the colours kept strictly to the originals, and the effect of the rich guilloches admirably preserved. Tile hearths, too, are a speciality of Mr. Minton Taylor’s, and these are produced in great variety and of extreme beauty: they are among the most successful adaptations of ceramic decorative Art to domestic purposes. The principal designs are by E. Welby Pugin, John Gibbs, J. Seddon, Dr. Dresser, and others.