Summary of Talk in Barnstaple, October 19th 2013

What a lovely 2 hours I spent on Saturday - My talk was well received by a packed audience in the upstairs room at Barnstaple Library, so much so more chairs needed to be found from the store room.
This was me in full swing, talking about the sgrafitto design differences between potters in Bideford and Barnstaple and how designs found in sherds at a dig in Bideford's Stella Maris Convent in 1999/2000 have pointed to the origins of finds found at Jamestown's May - Hartwell site being from a pottery in Bideford (thanks to John Allan's research and paper written up for a Devon Archaeology Society Journal). This contains North Devon pot sherds dating to the first half of the 17th century.
Chatting over a cup of tea afterwards, there was a lot of interest and lots of questions as well as very giving people who were sharing knowledge of, as well as enthusiasm about, North Devon Pottery.

Thanks to all who came and to the library staff for organising, publicising and providing refreshments.

Your invitation to my Talk in Barnstaple, October 19th 2013

I have been invited to give a talk about the export of Bideford Pottery to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Its on October 19th at Barnstaple library at 2pm, do come over if you are interested.

I'll also be bringing some sherds and fragments I have found locally. These are mostly 17th century, sgrafitto and plainware and will be available to share and handle.

2013 update

This year has been quite a busy one and so much so I have forgotten to update my blog! I have continued to find and collect sherds off the local beach, I will post some more about this as I have some exciting finds including more beautiful sgrafitto pieces.

Sadie at Manor Court during her talk

 I have given some talks to Community groups about my experiences in America and my growing sherd collection. Also, significantly, I was invited to be guest speaker at this year's Bideford Town Council's Manor Court event in March - my talk was about the Export of North Devon Pottery and its links to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. In particular I shared the fact that I had found a sherd of pottery here that has exactly the same design as pottery found at Jamestown VA, which perfectly completes the circle and cements the link between the two places, where the pottery went and its trade routes. I was delighted to receive a sgrafitto plate made and decorated by our very own Harry Juniper!

I was excited to learn earlier this year that the North Devon Pottery Festival event is happening in September in Bideford. It is exciting for me as I had discussions with potter Philip Leach upon my return from Virginia and North Carolina following my Churchill Fellowship in 2010. Philip was really inspired by my trip and research and the photos and experiences I shared with him. He wanted to create some sort of event to be able to make some new work in the traditional North Devon style, to celebrate the historical link. The rest, so they say, is history and John Edgeler has done a great job in obtaining an Arts Council Grant and pulling together an important Ceramics Festival for Bideford.

Talk at Churchill Fellows Day

Sadie showing sherds of North Devon pottery

On Saturday I gave a talk at the South West branch of the Churchill Trust - a Fellows day, attended by previous Churchill Fellows and members of the group.
I was invited to speak, to present information about my experiences on my Fellowship in 2010. It was a nerve-wracking time and I was third on, just before lunch so had to speak when everyone was hungry and following the news that England had lost the World cup semi-final!
The talk was very well received and there was a lot of interest - so much so that all through lunch there was a constant stream of people waiting to talk to me and ask me questions, which was great.
The picture above is of me in full flow, showing the 35 people or so in the audience some examples of sherds of pottery I have found locally since my return. The start of the Green House Ceramics Collection.
I had a good chat with Bill Nicholson who organised the event and who also took a group photo at the end of all the speakers to post onto the Winston Churchill Trust web site - watch this space!
Overall a very good day and it left me inspired to do more talks and to continue collecting sherds, sharing what I can find out about North Devon Pottery and its export and to continue to develop the Arts exchange programme with Manteo NC.

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.

Dr Klingelhofer comes to visit

Just had a great visit from Dr Eric Klingelhofer, eminent archaeologist and History professor at Mercer Uni, Georgia USA. Eric is also vice-president of the First Colony Foundation who are based in Manteo, North Carolina. Eric was wonderful company whilst he stayed with us in Bideford. I showed him my sherds and we re-named it the Green House Ceramics collection - he was most impressed by the sheer number of pieces found up the river Torridge.

Eric told me that some pieces of pottery have been discovered on Roanoke Island which date back to pre-1600 and grit free (found in the same context in Ireland). They would have been from jars, probably balluster jars, which would have been used for containing preserved food, anything from butter to fish. These jars were probably then re-used as containers in the process of assaying minerals.

The photograph was taken by my husband Dave - Eric is laying flowers at St Mary's Church in Bideford in memory of Rawley, the native American who was brought to the town by Sir Richard Grenville in 1586 following a skirmish on the Island. A member of the Grenville household, Rawley was baptised a Christian and later died and was buried in the Church in 1589, along with one of Richard's daughters Rebecca. In the back ground with Sadie is Andy Powell, Bideford Town Councillor and author of 'Grenville and the Lost Colony of Roanoke'

Report now finished

Well I haven't written a post in a while, but things have been moving on quietly behind the scenes in the pottery world in Bideford.

I have recently completed and sent off my report for the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust which makes me a Fellow now and I even have my official yellow membership card. I delivered my presentation to the Friends of the Burton Art Gallery and Museum AGM in April and really enjoyed lunch after, chatting to artist and collector RJ Lloyd who lives in Bideford and was responsible for the ceramics collection that the Burton Gallery now own. A book has been published to accompany the collection and 12 of these are in North Carolina and Virginia, with various folks and collections I got to see during my Fellowship trip.

I am also booked in to deliver a presentation about my Fellowship at a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust function in Exeter, Devon in October.

I have recently given up one of my part-time jobs so that frees up some time to devote to going back on the pottery trail and to setting up some more talks and opportunities to share my findings. I am still searching along the tidal river Torridge near to Bideford for sherds and adding to the collection nicely. In fact I can't go for a walk now without looking at the ground and examining anything that remotely looks like the right colour for pottery!

I am pleased to say that Alison Grant's book 'North Devon Pottery' is back in print and I have just purchased my own copy at long last to enable me to make reference to her findings.