Visiting John Allan in Exeter

I took a selection of items from the ‘GreenHouse Ceramics Collection’, including an assortment of gravel tempered plain ware (a baluster pot, rims and handles, glazed and unglazed) as well as some prized pieces of sgrafitto.

It was such a joy and pleasure to have someone else look at the pieces and offer up some response, explanations and information.

John was particularly interested in the baluster pot sherd. The bottom half of this tall jar, a piece 5 inches tall with a diameter of 4 inches. I talked to him about the pot I saw in Virginia with Karen Shriver at the Flowerdew Hundred collection. That one had been identified as being dated around 1625. John commented that these pots were only made in the 1600’s and not any later, so my sherd is quite a find!

We discussed the sgraffito pieces in the context of the designs that were being produced in the 1600’s and alongside a book that John gave me – a 2005 Devonshire Association publication which included an article part written by John about a site in Bideford that was excavated on the former Stella Maris convent school site. Here 17^th and 18^th Century pottery was found and photographs and drawings had been produced of the sgrafitto (and plainware) found there, it’s distinctive and common patterns. It was possible to look at these images with my sgrafitto sherds to indentify which patterns and designs featured. These include the geometric, leaves, floral, and spiral patterns. John explained how a compass was used to layout the points for leaves so there was a uniform shape and size all the way around a vessel such as a plate.

At the end of the visit, John was encouraging me to keep adding to the collection – and though I might consider some time to donate some pieces to someone else’s collection - he does not know of another collection from the Instow area, so mine is the first and deserves to be continued for some time yet.

My North Devon Pottery collection grows a bit, in bits!

My collection of North Devon pottery was added to in January. I already have some complete plainware jugs with slip around the rim, probably 19th century, although this has not been verified.

I now have found some sherds on the coast, a mixture of glazed plainware (different colours but mainly olive green glaze) and a couple of pieces of sgrafitto. Very exciting, and some of it looks like the photos of the finds I was shown in America! It felt really great to be back on home territory and find equally old pieces on the beaches here.

I went to visit Doug Fitch in his studio near Crediton to show him my collection and to talk about my trip to Virginia and North Carolina. Doug was very intrigued by it all and enthusiastically showed me some of his collection – he has quite a collection of North Devon Pottery and is a huge fan and advocate of it. His own work is highly influenced, producing beautiful pots featuring slipware and sgrafitto.

One sherd, a chunky and heavy piece of plainware with a handle was Doug’s favourite and he couldn’t put it down. I was even treated to a demonstration on his wheel of making a pot with a pulled over handle over the rim, to explain how the rim of the pot represented by the sherd was formed. He also said you can tell the maker of a pot by the handle – the size of it is unique and depends on the maker’s hand size.

As always a fascinating visit and a treat. Thank you Doug for being so generous with both information and enthusiasm.

2011 so far...

I have been working on various things so far this year, writing my report for the Winston Churchill Trust, visiting the Museum of North Devon and Barnstaple to talk to curator Ruth Spires about their collection and adding to my own collection.

I spoke to Ruth before Christmas about my fellowship trip and what I discovered in Virginia and North Carolina. Ruth told me that someone studying for a Phd (Alice Forward of Cardiff University) was visiting from Wales in January so I arranged to come back again at the same time so we could exchange information, finds and notes. I actually visited the Museum on February 3rd – when I arrived Alice was in the covered yard at the Museum with David Dawson, who has 40 years experience of identifying pottery. They both had their heads buried in boxes of sherds and it was quite a sight as there are rows and rows of boxes and boxes of finds. Ruth told me that a lot are from an archaeological dig in the 80’s when the new library site in Barnstaple was being developed.

We all went into the main Museum and compared sherds – I shared some recent finds from the North Devon Coast and Alice had some wonderful pieces of sgrafitto ware from the Valley between Swansea and Cardiff. David identified a couple of my sgraffito pieces as being 17th Century.

It was fascinating talking to him as he can identify a pot’s form and size from a relatively small piece.

I will return to the Museum some time soon and take a look at their collection. I will need a few hours to spare as it is so large but it is quite a significant collection of pottery from Barnstaple and Bideford and area.

Flowerdew Collection

Driving to see this collection near Charlottesville, VA, was an amazing experience - I had an address and a google map but it was unexpectedly a lovely place to visit, with a gated entrance and a man in charge of visitors who welcomed me and gave me permission to proceed up the private driveway. What a start!

A fascinating trip to view some of this collection, held by University of Virginia, solidifies exactly the direct link between the tobacco and pottery trade between Bideford and the Eastern Seaboard of America.

Flowerdew Hundred dates back to c1620, is on the James River and was in essence a tobacco plantation and factory and saw the “transformation of English Settlers into Americans” (from Commerce and Conflict: The English in Virginia, Flowerdew Hundred Foundation). During a time of peace with the local tribes, there was an opportunity for the English to expand their settlements and for colonists to take over the Indian’s abandoned villages. Flowerdew Hundred was established in this way and was “one of the earliest and most important of the large, privately owned plantations established in Virginia during the tobacco boom years 1617-1625” (from Commerce and Conflict).

It also has some of the richest and best preserved English settlement sites in the US. There are many examples of pottery, mainly plainware in their collection. I visited Karen Shriver, curator of the collection near Charlottesville – Karen introduced me to the collection and then pulled a few pieces for me to see and photograph. These vessels included a lovely ballister pot, c1624-28, most likely used to transport butter; a milk pan base with a green glaze and several smaller gravel tempered sherds, some with a lead glaze c1650 -1775. All these pieces have been identified as originating from North Devon.

Photographs taken by Dave Green, with permission given to use them courtesy of The Rectors and Visitors of the University of Virginia