The Origins and Survival of Littlethorpe Potteries in the Context of British Country Pottery-Making

REGIONAL AND NATIONAL IMPORTANCE

Historical Context

Pottery-making technology reached Britain in the third millennium B.C. and indigenous wheel-made pottery is first recorded in southern England in the first century A.D. (Rigby and Freestone 1997, 57). During the Roman period pottery was produced in much increased quantities using a wide range of local pre-Roman, as well as imported traditions. Coarse, hand-made cooking wares of pre-Roman origin continued to be produced at various centres, notably the Thames estuary and East Yorkshire, alongside coarse and fine-bodied wheel-made wares; the latter being fired in various kinds of up-draught kilns (Swan 1984) by nucleated groups of mainly rural potters at locations such as Crambeck near York (Wilson 1989). For the first time in Britain a small amount of glazed pottery was produced in this period, notably at Colchester (Barton 1975, 70). With the end of the Roman period, however, came a virtual hiatus in pottery-making in Britain, resulting in the loss or displacement of traditions developed and practised in Britain up to that point.

Early medieval pottery-making relied heavily on non-wheel forming technology and open-firing, although wheel-made wares from Continental Europe were imported, particularly into southern ports, through which the concept and practice of wheel-made pottery-making returned to Britain in the early part of the second millennium A.D. The recommencement of pottery-making using the wheel, initially associated with open, bonfire-firing, marks the beginning of a tradition of pottery-making in Britain which in its later phase includes Littlethorpe. The number of active pottery production centres seems to have risen in the twelfth century (McCarthy and Brooks 1988, 69), and continued at a relatively high level thereafter.

Throughout the later medieval period, with few exceptions, production continued in the context of small-scale, often nucleated workshops with hand- wheels and small, updraught kilns or clamps (McCarthy and Brooks 1988). A number of regional pottery-making centres arose during this period which survived into modern times, notably at Donyatt in Somerset, where potteries were active from the fourteenth century to about 1945 (Coleman-Smith and Pearson 1988), and around Verwood in the New Forest, active from at least 1500 to 1952 (Algar et. al. 1979, 6; Young 1979). The transformation of these industries into manufactories occurred in part due to the introduction of more efficient technology, including down-draught firing from the Rhineland and various clay processing appliances, many of them described by Dobson (in Celoria 1971 & 1973).¹³ Perhaps more significantly, however, it coincided with the industrialisation and urbanisation of Britain, which created a more substantial consumer base as well as providing abundant raw materials, notably coal and coal measures clay, and an improved transport infrastructure.

The history of the various Park Hill and Pottery Lane works established in the nineteenth century sits squarely in this historic context and is firmly rooted in the British medieval and post-medieval ceramic tradition. Indeed, several medieval and early post-medieval potteries are known in the vicinity of Ripon, notably medieval works at Winksley (Lawrence 1974, 217), Fountains and Sawley (Sellers 1912, 436), and seventeenth-century works at Yearsley near Coxwold (Grabham 1915, 105-7). Late seventeenth-and early eighteenth-century references in title deeds to 'Clay Pitts' on 'meadow lands at Thorpe and Bondgate in Ripon' (WYAS - Vyner MSS 3878-3901) may be associated with pits or ponds displayed on Beckwith's mid-eighteenth century map of Ripon (NYA - DC/RIC XVI 1/2/1), and together suggest clay working in the vicinity prior to the establishment of the present Littlethorpe Potteries. Corroborative documentation for this assertion is presently lacking, however.

Park Hill and its contemporaries in historical perspective

Park Hill was one of thousands of workshops or small-scale manufactories established to produce various classes of ceramic products in many parts of Britain from the later eighteenth to early twentieth centuries. Such potteries were established in an industrial, commercially competitive age and operated strictly as business ventures, the workers mastering their trade through long and arduous practice. George and Roly Curtis personify the highly professional approach established at that time, observed in potters elsewhere by Young:

The potters, who were essentially craftsmen, had learned the trade at the bench and wheel and regarded it as a job of work aimed at creating useful articles rather than works of art (Young 1979, 114).

Although the Park Hill works was locally unusual in combining the manufacture of bricks, tiles and land- or drainage-pipes with pottery-making, such diversification was not particularly unusual and,¹⁴ in general, throughout its history the works appears to have been unexceptional in the range of its products and the techniques employed to produce them. Today, approaching two centuries since its foundation, it is notable principally for its longevity and for the sheer fact of its survival into the twenty first century. The survival of the works has preserved with it a range of traditional production skills and pottery-related machinery which, though once abundant, are now rare elsewhere or otherwise extinct.

The number of similar enterprises operating regionally and nationally during the period since James Foxton established his works at Park Hill is unknown, but an increasing number of regional surveys are taking place from which may eventually emerge a cumulative total. Such surveys tend to concentrate either on potteries, or on brickyards & tileries, despite the evidence that many concerns produced ranges encompassing both classes of goods. Pottery-making has generally been more attractive to researchers, since its goods tend to be more distinctive and collectable. It is also more manageable as a subject of enquiry, since the number of potters and pottery-making concerns active at any given time in the recent historic past is found to be much smaller than brick and tile makers.

With regard to brick and tile producers it is particularly difficult to estimate numbers of individual concerns for any given period because many were tied to estates or farms, therefore were not regarded as independent businesses, or were temporary concerns linked to specific building projects. Even if the above are discounted, however, the number of such concerns operating independently is in the order of ten times greater than pottery-makers. Important regional surveys have taken place in Hampshire (White 1971), Oxfordshire (Bond et. al. 1980), north-east England (Davison 1986) and Scotland (Douglas and Oglethorpe 1993). Trades directories also give total numbers of producers for given dates: in Yorkshire, for example, Kelly's directory of 1877 lists 213 brick and tile makers (Kelly 1877, 1380-1) and a further 39 firebrick makers (op. cit. 1532-3).¹⁵ By contrast, a total of 20 pottery making concerns in the county is given in the same directory, none of them at Littlethorpe, suggesting that earthenware manufacturers, or those considered primarily brick and tile producers, were not routinely listed.

The York Handmade Brick Co. at Alne, North Yorkshire, is an important surviving example of a traditional Yorkshire brickworks and tilery. Until about 1980 all bricks and tiles were completely handmade there in wooden moulds, and, although now mechanised, thousands of 'specials' continue to be made in the traditional way each year. Clay is still sourced on-site and, although no longer transported by narrow gauge railway, abandoned rails remain buried on site (pers. com. Neil Clayton). Somewhat closer to Littlethorpe, brickworks at Roecliffe, near Boroughbridge, continued in production until around 1970, whereupon some of the rails used for clay transportation there were bought for use at Littlethorpe. At the national level, the best preserved example of a traditional country brickworks and tilery is at Bulmer in Essex, where nineteenth century structures and working practices survive (see below).

Turning from brick and tile-makers to the main subject of the present discussion, Brears's gazetteer gives the first and, to date, only indication of the number and distribution of country potteries between the post-medieval and modern periods at the national level (Brears 1971a, 167-232) in England. Unfortunately, the scope of this work does not extend beyond England and no such syntheses have yet been produced for Ireland, Wales or Scotland (McGarva 2000, 16). Local and regional surveys which have added depth to the picture for England and Wales include those for Yorkshire (Lawrence 1974), Oxfordshire (Stebbing et. al. 1980), Burton-in-Lonsdale (White 1989), Farnham (Brears 1971b), and the Verwood district in Dorset (Young 1979). More recently, Burrison identified a number of other surviving pottery works of nineteenth-century origin operating, like Littlethorpe, at the level of individual workshops or small-scale manufactories (Burrison 1997 & 1998). Prominent amongst these are Bardon Mill in Northumberland, Wetheriggs in Cumbria and Wrecclesham in Surrey. Two other potteries, Brannham's of Barnstable, Devon (Brannham 1982) and the Ewenny potteries in Wales (Lewis 1982) have also retained elements of traditional practice, though both have heavily modernised and relocated to new works premises.¹⁶

Littlethorpe alone survives in Yorkshire, though several others remained until recently. Lindley Moor Pottery near Huddersfield, established by the Morton family perhaps as early as the later seventeenth-century, was still being worked by a member of the founding family, Albert Morton, when John Hudson visited in 1986 (John Hudson, pers. com.; see also Lawrence 1974, 192). Albert Morton died in the late 1980s, however, and the site became a housing estate, with some structures from the pottery preserved at the insistence of the County Council. Isaac Button's Soil Hill Pottery near Halifax closed in 1965 after some two centuries of production, the site being bought upon his death in 1968 by Donald Greenwood who rented it for some years to Peter Strong, later of Wetheriggs. Isaac Button's bottle kiln survives as a listed building along with some associated structures, but there is no longer any production on the site.¹⁷ At Burton-in-Lonsdale production continued until just after World War Two, with over a dozen pottery-making concerns documented between 1740-1947, some with two or more kilns (White 1989).

The early twentieth century decline in the number of country potteries in Britain saw numbers fall to less than a dozen survivors in 1945.¹⁸ The case of Littlethorpe, essentially a nineteenth-century works rooted in the post-medieval tradition, now thriving after years of decline, backs up the following sentiments expressed about Verwood in Hampshire, but which could equally apply to many potteries in England which, unlike Littlethorpe, failed to endure the testing economic conditions of the middle part of the twentieth century:

It is ironic to consider that had it survived for a further 20 years its future may well have been assured by the current trend in consumer taste which is encouraging the re-establishment of craftsmen. (Algar et. al. 1979, 43).

Contemporary Survivors

Having discussed the foundation and development of the surviving Littlethorpe works and its survival as a specialist pottery-making concern in the context of the declining fortunes of other British producers of similar scale, it remains to consider the national importance of Littlethorpe by comparing it with the other British survivors. The following information is derived mainly from published sources, but is supplemented with information and impressions gained by the author during visits to all of the works described.

Bardon Mill, Northumberland

Davison's (1986, 116-7) account of the works, its products and history forms the basis of the following summary and is the most authoritative, but other accounts are provided by Baker (1989, 72-5) and Burrison (1997 & 1998).

The business was founded as Errington, Reay & Co. in 1878 by W Reay, manager of the Haltwhistle South Tyne Fireclay works and W Errington, an accounts clerk, on the site of a sixteenth-century woollen mill, the main building of which still serves as the moulding and forming shop. Initially it produced firebricks and field drain tiles, but later came to specialise in salt glazed products, including sanitary ware and fireplace bricks. In 1890 it employed 18 workers and in the 1930s, 22. Fireclay came originally from a drift mine north of the works, being quarried from a 7ft thick seam on a board and pillar system and transported by hand-worked waggonway. The yard also had its own colliery to supply five Newcastle-type kilns, but in 1932 a circular downdraught kiln was built to replace four of the Newcastle kilns. This kiln, with a diameter of 16.5ft and internal height of 11ft, is still in use, but instead of its original 10 stoke holes has been converted to fuelling by underground 'stokers' with mechanical feeders, or 'worms'. In 1926 and 1935 rectangular downdraught kilns were built, each with four fire-holes on each side. The remaining Newcastle kiln was demolished in 1960. Flues in the drying floor of the kiln shed are heated by oil burner, formerly by steam pipes. In 1996 the site was sold by Reay, the founder's great-grandson, but continues to specialise in salt-glazed garden pots and bread crocks, most of which are extruded onto wheels and shaped (see Baker 1989, 71). Currently (March 2000) the works employs around 10 people, firing the large, circular kiln once a week, but is expanding by bringing one of the rectangular Newcastle kilns back into service.

Brannam's of Barnstable, Devon

Though a town-based manufactory specialising in decorative wares, this works, established by 1840 (Brannam 1982, 3), also produced plant-pots in prodigious quantities and a 'peasant ware' range which included pancheons, jugs and Cornish ovens (op. cit. 1982, 43). It also compares to Littlethorpe in its use, up to the 1950s, of a horse and rope-pulled waggonway to transport hand-excavated clay in the company's clay quarry, the Bickington Claypits (op. cit. 15-18). Brannam's survives, but retains little of its original product range or character, having recently moved from its original, Victorian premises to a local industrial estate.

The Bulmer Brick & Tile Company, Suffolk

The Bulmer Brick and Tile Company on the Essex-Suffolk border is perhaps the longest established of all clay working concerns currently operating in Britain, although it can only be tenuously regarded as a pottery. The present owner, Mr Peter Minter, believes that the present works has operated without major interruption since the late seventeenth century, but the recent discovery of a mid-fifteenth century tile kiln in an adjacent field attests to still earlier workings in the immediate vicinity. The history of the works remains to be fully documented, but Mr Winter, who is an authority on the subject, keeps an archive relating to the works and is fully aware of its importance. The following, brief outline, is based on his oral account.

At the dawn of the modern era ownership was in the hands of the English family, whose tenure lasted between around 1800 and 1920. Ownership then passed for a period of four or five years to W C French, and subsequently, also for a short period, to G E Gray. In 1936 the site was bought by Mr L A Winter, father of the present owner, and has remained in the family ever since. It currently employs a staff of around 16-18 which fluctuates seasonally.

Throughout most of its working history the works produced standard patterns of brick and tile in bulk. By the mid-twentieth century, however, mechanisation had rendered it uneconomic to produce large quantities of standard patterns by hand, leading, as in the vicinity of Littlethorpe, to the closure of many small brickworks, tileries and potteries. In the face of overwhelming competition from larger, increasingly mechanised producers, the Bulmer works survived by diversifying into pottery-making,¹⁹ and moving away from the bulk manufacture of standard forms. Since 1974 brick and tile production has been orientated around the manufacture of 'specials': non-standard forms ordered in small quantities, often for architectural conservation purposes. Traditional working practices have survived, however, along with a range of structures and features, including a circular downdraught kiln from the 1930s, open-sided drying sheds and a range of nineteenth and early twentieth century buildings used as workshops, stores and offices. A number of redundant structures also survive, including two rectangular updraught kilns of late nineteenth century date, last used in 1939.

Although predominantly operating as a brick and tile works, the works has, in common with many similar concerns up to the early twentieth century (notably, the neighbouring Guestingthorpe works), periodically supported pottery-making as a subsidiary activity. Wheel-made plant pots are known to have been manufactured at the Bulmer works until around 1900, while the most recent episode of production in the 'English country pottery' tradition occurred between 1942 and around 1950, during which time Mary Horrocks and Sam Haile were amongst those associated with the works. Subsequent pottery-making activities on the site have been low key, though the potential clearly exists to re-establish it on a commercial basis.

The Ewenny Potteries, Wales ²⁰

The Ewenny Potteries survived the post-war decline in demand for traditional earthenwares by transferring production to new premises near the old works buildings, modernising its production methods and focussing production on decorated glazed-wares instead of slip-wares. Information provided by the Jenkins family, current owners of the works, suggests that there are records of potteries in the area since 1427 and that a pottery works has occupied the present site since 1610. The ancestors of the present owners have been involved directly with the works since before 1820, when the Jenkins family married into the Morgan family, then owners of the works. Caitlin Jenkins, who now works occasionally at the pottery with her father, Alun, is the seventh generation of the Jenkins family to work at Ewenny. Like the Barnstable, Bulmer and Wrecclesham potteries in the south, but unlike Littlethorpe, Wetheriggs and the West Yorkshire potteries in the north, Ewenny became well-known for its range of art wares, being influenced by Horace Elliott, a member of the Arts and Crafts Exhibition Society, who visited and worked at Ewenny in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Although the stone buildings which formerly housed the works have been converted to a pine furniture workshop and the old kilns dismantled, the thread of tradition is apparent at Ewenny in the location of the works on its original site and in its continuing operation by the Jenkins family, while stylistic continuity is perceived by Jones (pers. com.) in its current product range. Furthermore, the works still operates as a local pottery selling almost entirely to passing trade and by word of mouth.

Wetheriggs, Cumbria

Wetheriggs Pottery near Penrith has a rather complex history of ownership, recently described in detail by Blenkinsopp (1998, 3-38). It began in 1855 as an estate brickyard and tilery (Burrison 1998, 31) and was transformed into a pottery works by the Schofield family of potters who came from Yorkshire via the Stepney Bank Pottery in the Ouseburn, Newcastle upon Tyne. A short, private siding from the Eden Valley branch line of the Great North Western Railway served for coal deliveries to the site (Bennett & Bennett 1993, 11). John Schofield was succeeded upon his death in 1917 by his common-law wife, Margaret Thorburn, who passed the works to Arthur Schofield's son, John, upon her death in 1937. In 1952 Margaret Thorburn's grandson, Harold took over and ran the works until his retirement in 1973. The pottery was then bought by Peter Snell who underwent a year-long apprenticeship with Harold Thorburn and sought to preserve the physical structure of the works by having it scheduled as a national monument. In 1990, Snell sold to Peter Strong, formerly of Soil Hill Pottery near Halifax (see above), who in turn sold up in 1993.

The site is now run as a working pottery and industrial heritage centre. Many of its original buildings and features survive, including a large beehive kiln, along with restored appliances including a blunger and associated steam engine.²¹ However, the character of the works has been greatly changed by the importation of redundant industrial appliances in the 1970s and more recent construction of extensive sales and visitor facilities, including a viewing window into the workshop. Other than standard horticultural pots, the main products of the works remain slip decorated wares, first brought to the fore in the 1940s to compensate for declining demand for undecorated pancheons, bread crocks and other country wares (Burrison 1998, 31).

Wrecclesham, Surrey

Wrecclesham is the last in a centuries old tradition of commercial potteries on the Surrey-Hampshire border. Brears records three that survived into the modern period, namely; Charles Hill, Elstead (Brears 1971b, 5-7); The Holt in Alice Holt Forest (op. cit. 7-8); and Wrecclesham near Farnham (op. cit. 9-18). The latter, alternatively known as The Farnham Pottery was founded in 1872 by Absolom Harris, a potter-farmer who previously worked at Charles Hill and The Holt. Only two walls survive from the farm buildings which previously occupied the site (Knight pers. com.), while most of the surviving buildings, none of which pre-date its foundation as a pottery works, were constricted from bricks made at the works.

Gault clay for red-wares was transported by waggonway from adjacent pits for processing, while white clay for fine-wares was brought in from nearby Farnham Old Park. An alternative earthenware clay source fifteen miles away has been used since 1985 when the on-site reserves played out (Burrison 1998, 30).²² At its peak there were up to 30 workers and seven kick-wheels for throwing. Several kilns are known to have been built on the site - Brears says that Harris built 'a series of large kilns' (Brears 1971a, 149), and Jack Knight, a former employee, puts the number at five (pers. com. Jack Knight) - though not for simultaneous, or even contemporaneous use. One of these survives - a coal and wood-fired bottle kiln converted in 1967 for firing with oil. This system was not particularly successful, however, and the works later converted to gas firing using mains gas. Many of the portable appliances used on the site, notably wheels, tile extruders and pug mills, including several used today, were manufactured in a small blacksmith's shop within the works (Graham 1999, 13). In its very early years the pottery made domestic and garden wares, drainpipes and tiles, but from the 1880s placed heavy emphasis on decorative products and 'art pottery' (Brears 1971a, 215). From around 1940, however, production moved back to horticultural wares.

The Wrecclesham, or Farnham Pottery, site continued in Harris family ownership until 1996-7, being run by David Harris until forced by ill-health to sell. Part of the site is presently (May 2000) rented by his brother Philip, but this is likely to be a temporary arrangement. Other parts of the site are rented by a local group of hobby potters, the West Street potters, and by Martin Ings, a former employee of the works,²³ but the rest is unoccupied and semi-derelict. The site was threatened by housing developments when bought by the Farnham Building Preservation Trust - parts had already been sold for that purpose - and the site now has grade two listed status. Plans by the Farnham trust to preserve and restore the physical structure of the site and use it to maintain the potting tradition, augmented with other craft businesses (Graham 1999, 13), are still alive but await funding.

The status of Littlethorpe in relation to other contemporary survivors

From the above it is reasonable to conclude that Littlethorpe displays the greatest continuity of production within the small group of surviving 'country pottery' works in Britain. Furthermore, the direct involvement of the Curtis family at the Littlethorpe works is longer than any other family connection elsewhere in England, and may be second in Britain to the Jenkins/Morgan family at Ewenny in Wales, whose involvement there can be traced to at least the early nineteenth century.

Several features of the Littlethorpe works are unique in Britain, notably the waggonway and hypocaust heating systems, but Bardon Mill, Wetheriggs and Wrecclesham all have surviving kilns comfortably pre-dating the Newcastle kiln at Littlethorpe. No buildings built specifically for pottery-making are known to survive anywhere from the period before 1850, but structures built within 25 years of that date survive at Bardon Mill, Wrecclesham and Littlethorpe.²⁴ In general, Littlethorpe and Wrecclesham display the greatest coherence of form and original character, being the least changed of the surviving potteries, but Littlethorpe is the only one to carry out all stages of the pottery-making sequence on-site, since it is the only one still to exploit local reserves of clay. Littlethorpe also displays the greatest incidence of associated ceramic works and other closely related industrial monuments in the vicinity.

13. Celoria comments: 'Edward Dobson's treatise of 1850 bridges the post-medieval world with that of the mechanisation of the nineteenth century' (Celoria 1971, 3). back  to article

14. Throsk in Scotland, taking the opposite course to Littlethorpe, transformed itself from a seventeenth and eighteenth century pottery to a brick and tile works in the nineteenth century, surviving in that form until at least 1876 (Caldwell and Dean 1992, 6). back  to article

15. The British Brick Society and Brickmakers Index are other potential sources of data, but tend at the moment to display regional biases towards the southern half of England. back  to article

16. Information on Ewenny provided by Dr Jeffrey Jones, UWIC. back  to article

17. However, John Hudson of nearby Mirfield has been working in the tradition set by Isaac Button, Albert Morton and the other West Yorkshire 'country' potters using local, coal measure clays since 1973. back  to article

18. Wetheriggs was already regarded as a curiosity by that time, attracting coach trips by 1943. back  to article

19. Notably in the person of the artist-potter, Sam Haile (Rice et al. 1993). back  to article

20. Information on Ewenny provided by Dr Jeffrey Jones of UWIC (pers. com. 10/8/01). back  to article

21. The latter was restored by Fred Dibnah in 1995. back  to article

22. Mr Jack Knight (pers. com. 12/5/00), formerly an employee of the works, claims that the local clay resources were not exhausted, but the local council prevented further extraction. back  to article

23. Richard Charters, former employed at both Farnham and Wetheriggs, now runs his own pottery at Eglingham, Northumberland, using clay from the Glacio-lacustrine beds at Alne, North Yorkshire. back  to article

24. ANDREWSPP@aol.com 20 July 2001 16:23 back to article

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