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.

Talk at North Devon Arts

I gave my first talk last Wednesday night at North Devon Arts (NDA), at Broomhill Art Hotel near Barnstaple. I have been a member of NDA for a while and it was a really great thing to experience time in the ‘presenter’s seat’ for a change, having gone to many meetings and been an audience member.

I went to great length to prepare a good talk that covered both aspects of my Churchill Fellowship – the export of Pottery and the Manteo twinning connection. I wanted to disseminate what I had learned about the pottery trade and shared examples from all of the collections that I had seen. I also brought along some pieces from my sherd collection and it gave the audience a chance to handle bits of old pot, a bit like I did in America.

I brought some props with me and quoted from some books. My Manteo baseball hat was put on at one stage and the Manteo water bottle and plastic dumpster truck were held aloft!

What was particularly special was that as well as a round of applause at the end, several people came up to me afterwards and told me how much they had enjoyed the talk and enjoyed my enthusiasm. Also 3 lots of people came out especially to hear my talk, who haven’t been to an NDA meeting for some time.

All in all a lovely evening, thank you to NDA for including me in your programme and for the complimentary glass of wine and meal, which were both delicious.

My next talk booked in is on April 16th at the Friends of the Burton AGM.

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

Next stop Williamsburg Virginia

At last a complete North Devon sgrafitto pot! But.... not an original, this was in a store in Colonial Williamsburg and is a reproduction, but it was exciting to see none the less.

Colonial Williamsburg is an interesting place, its very old for America, was settled as a British Colony in the mid 1700's – as their website says “the world’s largest living history museum in Williamsburg, Virginia—the restored 18th-century capital of Britain’s largest, wealthiest, and most populous outpost of empire in the New World”

I was intrigued to visit and to see how Americans 'do' Heritage. It felt strange walking around, slightly unreal the first evening as the place was quite empty and it almost felt a bit fake even though there are over 80 original buildings there. The roads are very wide (maybe too wide for the 18^th century?) and there were costumed characters walking around, though not many and they did not seem to be in character, plus evidence of horse and carriage rides on the ground! A lot of the buildings are reproductions as the originals get removed for archeaological activity to take place in their foundations and then are rebuilt on the same site – like the original coffee house that was lived in by an old lady for years. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation excavated the site and then a reproduction was built on the same spot on the original foundations, based on archaeological evidence.

The next day, Tuesday I went back again with Dave to experience more activity. It was interesting noticing details such as bins being disguised as wooden barrels (again something for Bideford to do). What was strange was that there was pottery in stores for sale (a lot of places sold the same things, including pottery jugs, wooden barrels made by on -site coopers, period reproduction clothing, colonial chocolate based on an old recipe and old newspapers).

The pottery was all new and reproduction often coming from China or Spain - in one craft store, there was a North Devon harvest jug on the floor of the shop at the top of the stairwell! It turned out to be a reproduction made jug by Michelle Erickson. Later I went on the search for Michelle and ended up at her shop (closed) in Yorktown, but that's for a later blog. This harvest jug was a copy of a jug with text on it about Barnstaple and was for sale for $799, maybe there's a market for Bideford's potter Harry Juniper's work?

A nice touch was the garden, filled with plants that were orginally grown by the Colonists with seeds and plants for sale.

Colonial Williamsburg is a very busy place for tourism and Americans just love their history and roots, the walking tours and day passes were very popular as it allowed greater access to the inside of buildings and access to people re-creating everyday life. It was a fruitful experience to gain some ideas of how to promote and celebrate heritage.

The Raleigh Tavern unfortunately was closed.

The Jamestowne Connection

On Monday I had a day visiting Jamestowne. I had three scheduled visits, firstly to meet and do the 'In the Trenches Tour' with head archaeologist Dr Bill Kelso; secondly to meet with Senior Curator Bly Straube and thirdly to meet with Curator Melanie Piereira.
With great excitement and a bit of nervous intrepidation, I travelled from Williamsburg (where we were staying) to Jamestowne nice and early to get my bearings and hopefully have some breakfast there. There are 2 parts to the Jamestowne experience – the Jamestowne Settlement (see http://www.historyisfun.org/Jamestown-Settlement.htm) which is in essence a re-creation of the original settlement and Fort with tours led by costumed characters and reproduction Ships on the river (a good idea for Bideford to do this); the second part is Historic Jamestowne ( see http://historicjamestowne.org) and is the actual site of the original settlement with archaeological digs providing firm evidence of where the Fort was, the church, and other sites, including the original well. Both places have visitor interpretation and historical exhibits.

The In the Trenches tour was very interesting and a real insight into those early pioneers and early life on the Island. I was in a group of only 6 so it felt even more special (the tour can take up to 30 people)– Dr Kelso started digging, after he giving up his job to do so, and he really started off the detailed exploration of the site, keen to find answers to the puzzle. It was fascinating seeing the archaeological digs - when we were in there, one of the team dug up a piece of clay pipe and a black and white glass bead. We were told to look at the different colours of the earth which signified where possible structures may have been. What was incredibly pertinent was viewing lots of black crosses signifying graves – of the 106 original settlers, half died within weeks of arriving. Interestingly, the graves were within the Fort rather than outside it and Dr Kelso wondered if people were buried in the Fort so that the native Indians didn't see that the Community were sick as that would show a weakness and leave them vulnerable to attack. After the tour I went to meet Bly Straube and she had kindly got some sherds of North Devon Pottery Out for me to view – it was so exciting and felt a little weird being in Jamestowne and seeing pieces of pot that were made in Bideford or Barnstaple (the pieces couldn't be pin pointed). The three pictures of pottery here are reproduced by permission of Preservation Virginia, Jamestowne Rediscovery Project. There was a large piece of a dripping dish with a green glaze – used to catch meat juices during cooking – and a broken vessel that was vase shaped and Bly thought would have been used to transport dried fish (not a butter vessel as that was wider to pack the butter and layer it with salt to stop it spoiling). I also saw some smaller, but wonderful, sgrafitto sherds, with the yellow glaze that so signifies the North Devon style.There was an apparently unique small handleless cup that was used as a drugs cup, I held this one in my hand and took a photo of it. I was able to tell Bly about the RJ Lloyd collection at the Burton Art Gallery and she was very interested in that and will take a look at the website.

The last stop was meeting with Melanie (pronounced Me-lay-nee) and she had 'pulled out' 4 pieces from the millions of sherds they have that have been found on Jamestowne Island – yes that is millions!! That was pretty awesome too; there were 2 complete bowls (that has been pieced together) with a mix of geometric and swirly designs on and that signature yellow glaze; an almost complete mug and an almost whole vase shaped vessel with a rose design on it. She could have shown me all kinds of things and lots more but wanted to show me something to represent the collection. We also took a look together at Alison Grant's book on 17^th century pottery (kindly lent to me by Linda Blanchard at the North Devon AONB) and it was fascinating as she was looking through the pictures and pointing out all the things that there are in the collection.

Wow what a great day – I felt quite humbled by it all and although I am not here to research American history I felt that this is what I was learning a lot about too and the amazing resilience of those early British colonists in Jamestowne.