Fig. 660.
The goods produced were tea, dinner, and dessert services, vases, match-pots, cabinet cups, pen and wafer trays, inkstands, and a large variety of other articles. One of the most interesting relics of these works which has come under my notice is the cup here engraved, which was formerly in my own collection. It has been painted with what is technically known as the “Chantilly pattern,” in blue, and then has been used as a trial piece for colours and glazes. It bears in different parts of its surface various washes of colour, with marks and contractions to show the mixture, which have been submitted to the action of the enamel kiln. In my own collection are also some other highly interesting examples, including an oval tray, painted with flowers, a plate, “Chantilly” pattern saucers, and some interesting fragments and relics of the old works. In the Jermyn Street Museum the collector will find some good examples for comparison, as he will also in some private collections. Some remarkably fine examples of Nantgarw china are in the possession of Sir Ivor Bertie Guest, Bart., and others are in various collections.
The village of Nantgarw is situated in the parish of Eglw y Sillan, in Glamorganshire; it is eight miles from Cardiff, and one mile from the “Taffs Well” Station, on the Taff Valley Railway; and the Rhymney Valley Railway is also equally near.
The works shown in the engraving are picturesquely situated by the side of the Glamorganshire Canal, on the road to Caerphilly, from whose glorious old ruined castle they are only a few miles distant.
Brown and Stoneware Potteries.—The other works (besides Nantgarw) in Glamorganshire and Monmouthshire are those of Messrs. Henry James, Joseph Rogers, Evan Davies, George Sherrin, and Thomas Moore. At these only common, coarse brownware pitchers and other domestic vessels are made.
Cardigan.
The Cardigan Potteries.—These pottery works were established in 1875 by Mr. J. H. Miles and Mr. William Woodward, and were at first intended simply for the production of common coarse red earthenware goods for domestic and horticultural purposes. The clay of this district having been found to be of a superior character and capable of being turned to good account for better classes of goods, the firm turned their attention to its development, and have succeeded in producing not only articles of an artistic character, but architectural decorations of more than average excellence. The productions of Messrs. Woodward and Co. are vases, jugs, flower stands, and other ornamental articles, and these are decorated and glazed in a manner peculiarly their own, and which gives to them a distinctive character over those of other manufactories. In some, quaint and well-designed patterns are impressed in the clay, and the whole being surface coloured and highly glazed have a rich and peculiar appearance. The firm trade under the names of “The Cardigan Potteries,” “Woodward and Co.,” and their works are called the “Patent Brick, Tile, and Pottery Works” and “Cardigan Potteries.” The goods are principally for the Welsh coast and for England, but the trade is rapidly developing itself, and by the addition of other branches, especially in blue clay goods, will become an important feature in Welsh manufactures. Glazed and unglazed bricks and tiles, coloured tiles for interior mural decoration, and paving tiles of various kinds, form also a staple branch of trade of the Cardigan Works.
The marks used by the firm are the words “Cardigan Potteries” and “Woodward and Co.,” impressed in the ware, and a design of a brick bearing the words Woodward and Co., Cardigan.