West Country Households: Pottery Viewing (Monday 17th September 2007)
The group of finds from Queen Street pit 314
This large group of household objects, found in a garderobe pit on the Marks and Spencer site in Queen Street in 1979, is closely datable from its porcelain, stoneware,glass and single clay pipe to c. 1600. It is a crucial group for the understanding of the development of ceramics in SW England at this time.
The most plentiful finds are fragments of red earthenware from south Somerset, but there are also sherds of North Devon calcareous ware (two-handled jar top left), and gravel-tempered ware (bowl top right), Border ware (no doubt sent via London), Frechen and Raeren stonewares (bottom right), Tuscan maiolica and and Ming porcelain The glass includes fragments in the Venetian tradition. At this date coarse vessels for use in the kitchen outnumber tablewares, but the group contains some of the earliest known examples of S Somerset sgraffito pottery.
Arguably the most spectacular single finds assemblage recovered so far from excavations in Devon, this group dating to c. 1680 illustrates strikingly the quantity of imported goods to be seen in the wealthiest households of Exeter. It was salvaged from the jaws of a mechanical digger by Exeter Archaeology in 1974 and clearly represents a household clearance.
More than 100 fragmentary pots, with glasses, clay pipes, bones and small metal finds, were found packed into a stone-lined garderobe pit. They included seven Ming porcelain vessels, five Venetian drinking glasses, many stonewares from the central Rhineland, eight delftwares of very high quality from the Netherlands, and maiolica from Liguria and Lisbon.
A Ming porcelain dish and saucer-dish
In a British context, an exceptional aspect of the archaeology of Devon is the presence of late Ming porcelain imported from China, dating to the end of the 16th century and the early years of the 17th. There are important series of fragments of such porcelain at Plymouth and from Berry Pomeroy Castle, but the best-preserved pieces are from Exeter. These pieces painted in underglaze cobalt blue found at 38 North Street in 1974 date to about 1600. The dish shows a tranquil scene of islands and fishermen, rocks and trees, the border being of alternating peach (symbolising immortality) and flowers. The saucer-dish shows the 'bird on a rock' motif. Since such wares were highly prized, and in Elizabeth's reign seem to have been confined largely to the homes of wealthy courtiers, these are surprising luxuries to find, even in a wealthy merchant's home. A possible explanation is that Devon merchants were acquiring such goods through the capture of Spanish ships trading with the Far East. One such ship, the San Felipe, was brought into Saltash by Drake in 1587. Among its fabulously wealthy cargo were three pipes of porcelain, valued at the large sum of £100 per pipe.
Household rubbish from Trichay Street
This large Exeter group dates to c. 1660; it appears to represent the clearance of an old household, since some of the items were at least a generation old when discarded. It contains many large coarse storage jars, but also delftwares, olive jars (left), Chinese porcelain, Westerwald and Frechen stonewares, and Border wares from London.
An important aspect of the assemblage is the preservation of many organic objects, including wooden bowls and much leatherwork, as well as large quantities of animal bone, clay pipes and small finds.
A North Devon dish of c 1670
The dish was found in the rich group from 38 North Street Exeter in a context of c. 1680. It illustrates the distinctive sgraffito- (scratch-) decorated slipwares made in the north Devon towns of Barnstaple, Bideford and Great Torrington in the late 17th century. Great quantities of such pottery were exported to the coasts of Ireland, Wales and North America.
The particular motifs on the dish, most notably the pair of birds, identify it as an example of the 'William Oliver' style of sgraffito decoration. Precise matches to these motifs were found during excavations at the North Walk pottery site by Trevor Miles in the early 1970s. Some sherds in this style bore the initials W and O, which have been indentified with the Barnstaple potter William Oliver, and dates in the late 1660s and 1670s.
Fragments of maiolica (tin-glazed pottery) from Montelupo in Tuscany, dating to c. 1570-1630, found at Castle Street, Plymouth
Much the largest collection of Italian and Spanish pottery in excavated in Britain has been found in Plymouth. The view shows fragments of maiolica (tin-glazed pottery) from Montelupo in Tuscany, dating to c. 1570-1630, found at Castle Street, Plymouth.
Pottery used in sugar refining
In the years between 1680 and 1720 several sugar bakers operated in Exeter and Topsham. Waste from a sugar house was found in Goldsmith Street in 1971; it consisted of many thousands of sherds used in the later stages of sugar refining.
Sugar arrived in England mainly in the form of muscavadoes (brown sugar) and was refined first by boiling; it was then poured into conical earthenware sugar moulds which sat upon globular syrup jars. The sugar crystallised in the sugar moulds and was then whitened by repeated pouring of liquids through the sugar.
The Exeter finds include thousands of sherds of sugar mould of micaceous red earthenware, which seem to have been imported from Portugal, alongside many fragments of syrup pots. Sherds of a third form of vessel with tripod feet were also found.
The image shows one of the fragmentary sugar moulds from the Goldsmith Street excavation, sitting on an excavated syrup pot from a different site, together with modern reconstructions of their form when complete and a modern sugar loaf in the museum collection of the type which would have been made in a cone.
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