Fig. 658.
In 1823 the greater portion of the china works were pulled down, the dwelling-house and some other portions alone remaining. In 1832, Mr. William Henry Pardoe, of Bristol (who was a china painter of great skill), a good practical potter of great experience in the art which had, through Richard Champion and his successors, made his city famous, entered upon the premises, and commenced there a red-ware pottery, in connection with an extensive tobacco-pipe manufactory. To this he afterwards added Rockingham ware and stoneware departments, in each of which he produced goods of excellent quality. Mr. Pardoe died in 1867, and the Nantgarw works—those works around which such a halo of interest exists—are still carried on by his widow and her family. The goods now produced are red or brown earthenware, made from clay found in the neighbourhood—many of the pitchers being of purely mediæval form—stoneware bottles of every kind, jugs, butter-pots, cheese and bread pans, foot and carriage warmers, snuff-jars, hunting jugs and mugs, tobacco-jars, jugs, &c., and other goods; tobacco-pipes, which experienced smokers declare to be at least equal to those from Broseley, garden-pots, pancheons, &c., are also made.
The only marks used at Nantgarw which can be considered to be marks of the works are the following, impressed in the the body of the china:
NANT-GARW
G. W.
the G. W. being the initials of George Walker, the son-in-law and partner of Billingsley; and the single word NANT-GARW in red colour.[60] Another mark, supposed to belong to these works is this:
; with the number of the pattern as “No.” added.
Fig. 659.
