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

GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

Historic and economic context of the Littlethorpe works

The area south of Ripon between Littlethorpe and Bishop Monkton probably remained unenclosed, poorly drained moorland until at least the mid-eighteenth century. The earliest hint of clay working in the vicinity of Littlethorpe is provided by the inclusion of the place-name, 'Claypitts', in late seventeenth century deeds covering the districts of Thorpe and neighbouring Bondgate. These and other documents suggest that the area was exploited for its resources of clay and sand, as well as for seasonal pasture. Following enclosure and drainage, the heavy nature of the soil prevented intensive arable farming and led to the prevalence of stock farming as the dominant form of land-use.

Alongside farming, small-scale production of brick, tile and pottery developed along the incipient Pottery Lane from the early 1830s. While some of these works were appendages to farms and probably operated on a seasonal basis, others operated more independently of farming interests. The surviving works complex, which was the first of those set up along Pottery Lane, seems from the outset to have been part of the group operating independently of farming interests, functioning from at least the early 1830s as a specialist producer of pottery, bricks, tiles and drainpipes. Correspondingly, the study area contains structures and features associated with a wide range of activities, while adjacent clayworking sites in the Pottery Lane corridor display a much narrower range of features, reflecting the restricted time-scale and reduced range of activities practised there.

Significance of the Littlethorpe works

The present pottery making complex and similar sites along Pottery Lane, including a redundant kiln immediately west of the surviving works, form a cluster of highly visible industrial sites which also includes the Ripon-Ure canal to the east and former Ripon-Thirsk Railway to the west. Within the pottery complex most of the surviving buildings and associated features and appliances date from the nineteenth century and are in most cases specifically designed to function in the context of a pottery works. Unique to the works are its use of on-site clay reserves, transported by means of a fixed-engine waggonway, processed using late-nineteenth century blunger and pug machines, and thrown on a double-cone pottery wheel. In addition to the surviving visible structures and features, a number of other clay-working activities are documented which may have left traces now buried by later deposits.²⁵

The present pottery works has seen continuous pottery production since the late Georgian period and, as such, is unique in Britain. The involvement of the Curtis family at the works since 1912 or 1913 has preserved traditional techniques and processes of pottery-making which would otherwise have been lost, thereby enhancing the site's present historical significance as a repository, or reservoir, of traditional skills.²⁶

Taking a rather wider perspective, Littlethorpe may also be regarded as linked by tradition and common practice to other European traditions which have been subject to flows of ideas and motor habits since the reappearance and spread of wheel throwing in many parts of Europe around 1000 A.D. The importance of Littlethorpe is enhanced by the rarity of such potteries elsewhere in Northern Europe and the rapid demise of many in Central and Southern Europe which, until recently, survived in much greater numbers (Carlton 1999a & 1999b).²⁷

Finally, the site should undoubtedly be regarded as of considerable scholarly significance, providing an example of organisational change and adaptability to changing markets which are reflected in the changing nature of its products through time, and in visible and sub-surface structural remains. The growing awareness in ceramic studies of the need to use surviving traditional producers to key into interpretations of past production systems (cf. Peacock 1982) suggests that Littlethorpe may offer exceptional potential for further research, particularly since the majority of such studies (e.g. Kramer 1997; Deal 1998) have previously been carried out in non-industrial, non-European contexts and are therefore of dubious value when considering the interpretation of pottery from post-medieval contexts in Northern Europe.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the assistance of all who have assisted in recording various aspects of Littlethorpe potteries since 1999, in particular Mark Jackson, Bob Johnson and Alan Williams. I am also grateful to Jeffrey Jones for suggesting this paper and commenting on an early draft, and to two anonymous reviewers, some of whose constructive suggestions have been incorporated, as far as possible, into the present text, while others will be taken into account in subsequent papers which, it is hoped, will expand on the social history and contemporary working practices of the works. Above all, however, I am grateful to Roly Curtis for accepting repeated intrusions into his workshop and work schedule, for unfailingly responding to obtuse questions with good humour and allowing part of his land to be dug up by student archaeologists. His sublime skills continue to inspire those who aspire to follow the course of British country potting.

Notes

25. Excavations in Summer 2000, for example, revealed abandoned brick & tile drying stands and a waggonway in the area between the present works complex and clay pits area. back  to article

26. The historical connection can be taken further by including George Curtis snr., a bargeman on the Ripon-Ure canal who delivered coal to the works and may have played a part in George Curtis Jnr's involvement there. back  to article

27. In such regions as Iberia and the Western Balkans, where country potteries and brickworks often operated on a seasonal basis in support of the main economic activity, farming, their closure has led to the extinction of highly evolved manufacturing and stylistic traditions (Carlton 1999a & 1999b). back  to article

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