I am excited to report that I have a published piece on the Burton at Bideford’s website about the North Devon Ceramics Trade and the American Connection.
This is a new addition to the website and is part of their Online Gallery. The web page features a summary of the key features of the trade between North Devon and the Eastern seaboard of the United States. This includes why North Devon, Bideford Potteries, Pottery exports, the tobacco trade, and American collections and Connections.
I am bursting with pride and enthusiasm with this web page and pdf document as they bring together the contacts I have made and how much I have learnt. My Churchill Travel Fellowship research trip in 2010 literally started the journey for me, and I am so grateful for all the generosity from people I have met along the way and who have been willing to share their knowledge and collections with me.
Meanwhile, behind the scenes and closed doors, The Burton team are working on the new display cabinet. I know they have made a start but I have been unable to go inside the museum in person due to lockdown restrictions. I’m hoping that it will be finished soon, and I can have a sneaky preview ahead of the museum reopening to the public, whenever that is possible!
The Burton did post an image of work in progress on their Facebook page dash you can see it here:
I got a phone call from Ian Danby, Director of the Burton Art Gallery and Museum (Burton at Bideford) in November 2020. He explained that the Burton wish to create a new display in the museum telling the stories of the relationship between Bideford and America, in particular the pottery and tobacco trade.
Replica Elizabethan ship, Jamestown VABideford Bay Creatives ‘A Portrait of Bideford’ Project
Inspired by a talk I gave for the Burton in the summer, as part of their ‘Good Afternoons’ in the park series, Ian invited me to contribute by sharing my research and findings from the last 9 years together with some of my 17th century sherd collection that I have built up from finds at the beach.
Of course, I leapt at the chance, eager to share my research. It also enabled me to spend time refining my notes and to ultimately produce a coherent set of information for both the physical display, associated page on the website and a deeper and more detailed downloadable document for visitors to access should they choose to learn more. This was also an opportunity for me to re-visit my photos and to make some editing decisions about which of these best helps to tell this exciting and fascinating story.
Pot sherd from Instow beach
I also agreed to be recorded/filmed by Burton staff, talking about my sherding on the beach, my sherd collection and its importance as it provides tangible evidence of Bideford’s pottery production and trade. This will be screened in the museum alongside the display.
……….And so the new display about ceramics, tobacco, Bideford and the Americas – the ‘Relationship between Bideford and America through the exportation of ceramics to the colonies’ was born!
Tobacco jar from the Burton collection
During November and December I exchanged ideas and had a couple of meetings with Nicole. Museum Assistant, as she was tasked to co-ordinate the creation of the new display cabinet. We managed one physical meet up and then England was put under another lockdown so Nicole and I had a virtual meeting and exchanged a few emails!
We adapted the original brief to reflect our evolving ideas for content and scope. We soon realised that this is such a massive theme and there is a wealth of information that can be included, that it would be better to initially have a smaller display as a starting point. This will be smaller, focussing on an introduction to:
why Bideford was an important centre for pottery production
who were the potters
why pottery was exported and where
the relationship with the tobacco trade
evidence of pottery found in American collections
The aspiration then to produce a much bigger display in the museum in the future to include broader and deeper information. Sir Richard Grenville will have to wait until later!
“The best clay for Potters was ‘digged up’ at Fremington” [Risbon observed in 1630] “it has been used for generations by all North Devon Potters, it is chocolate in colour, fires a beautiful teracotta and matures at 1000 degrees centigrade which is a great advantage, combined with its strength for throwing and pulling handles. I know of no other clay which can be thrown so thin when one has acquired the necessary experience” – (W F Holland, over 300 years later than Risbon’s quote).
Pot sherd from Instow beach
The big ongoing debate for archaeologists, potters and curators of collections is this – is the clay used in North Devon pottery gravel free or not gravel free and if it does have gravel is it in the clay naturally or added and mixed in?
In the 17th and 18th centuries “the materials of which the weare is composed cost little or nothing” (1792 John Watkins, Bideford historian]. Body clay – local red clay, white clay for slip – ball clay, gravel to temper the coarse wares, lead ore for glaze – merchants supplied this from Chester, Aberdovey and Bristol; fuel, wood for firing the kiln and some coal.
Lots of North Devon pottery has been found in Nova Scotia, New England and Virginia as England provided all the plainware needs for the colonists. The first settlement was at Roanoke Island in present day North Carolina. The tall jar is the most common North Devon ware found up to 1620. Roanoke, Newfoundland, Maine, New England, Maryland and Jamestown all have these pots. Some are plain Fremington clay, some are gravel tempered, or ‘calcareous’, as described by Merry Abbit-Outlaw curator at Jamestowne Rediscovery in Virginia. These particles are not always visible. Sometimes they are in the pots referred to as ‘gravel free’.
Pot sherd from Instow beach
Bly Straube, Senior Curator at Jamestowne Settlement and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown has observed that this is most common in earlier contexts; the earlier it is, the more gravel is in the clay.
I am reading W Fishley Holland’s book ‘50 years a Potter’, 1958, which is a fascinating read. Despite the date of this book, I am very interested in what he has to say about his practice and the use of gravel. I am pretty sure that the following description would have applied to North Devon potters in earlier centuries as W Fishley Holland adopted long-standing traditions handed down through the generations from his Great Grandfather, George Fishley (17771-1865) who set up Fremington Pottery.
“At the pottery, when our old horse driver passed on, I was detailed to the job , and so learnt to mix the various clays for different kinds of pots: as dug, for small pots and pitchers, some fine Bideford grit for large pots and pitchers, and more grit for the cooking pots. The clay was wet down, chopped and slapped before being put through the pugmill twice.” (p10-11)
“To get our gravel, barges went above Bideford bridge and worked the tides so that they got to Muddlebridge on the next high tide to unload. When Bideford pottery was working they loaded back with clay.” (p11)
So it seems to be a possible combination of factors – it could be inherent within the Fremington body clay but not very visible to the eye; it can be added to pot forms to make them stronger (and able to be fired at a slightly lower temperature), as it is more visible and plentiful in larger pots; and also it could be which time period a pot was made, as a pot from early 1600s has been found to contain more gravel than later ones.
Michelle Erickson in Bideford, making pots with local clay for the Cargo Project
In which case was the clay washed to remove the gravel particles? When Virginian Ceramicist Michelle Erickson visited Bideford in 2013 and was a resident potter for the Cargo Project, Michelle did observe that when the clay she was working with in Bideford was washed, gravel came out of it.
The debate continues …………..comments and insights are welcomed!
Soundwave Radio is a new community station for North Devon broadcasting over the Internet from studios in Bideford. It is due to go live in early 2021. It was initially due to go live this year, in early December, but because of Covid- 19 restrictions unfortunately the start date has been delayed until early 2021.
I got to hear about this exciting prospect of a new radio station happening right here in Bideford a couple of months ago, so I went to an initial meeting to find out more. In the past I have always enjoyed being a guest on local radio stations, often talking about my work areas and projects. For example, when I was arts and crafts development officer for Northamptonshire, I did a weekly slot on a local radio station in Northampton to talk about arts and cultural events and activities. At the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon, I regularly ‘appeared’ as a guest on The Voice FM, to give updates about the Pop Up museum’s activities and how the new extension building was progressing.
When I went to the meeting at Soundwave Radio, it was in my head to be a guest at some stage on someone’s show, to come in and talk about projects, local history, arts and cultural events – sometimes bringing a guest with me to hear their stories of living and working in North Devon. It soon became apparent that there is enough material here for me to run my own show and become a presenter! Following that initial meeting I had a follow up with Mark Clark-Ludlam and Peter Lawrence who are the inspiration and brains behind this new station. They persuaded me to commit to becoming a radio presenter. I got all excited and nervous all at the same time as I have never done radio presenting before but very much enjoy being in a radio setting and talking to people.
The outcome is that I will do a fortnightly show, probably on a Tuesday evening.
The first phase is to get some training so that I can become technically proficient in being a presenter and I have done one introductory session just before lockdown which was good timing.
I’m looking forward to the present lockdown being lifted so that a programme of training sessions can run and I can be preparing myself to start my show, hopefully in February 2021!
The Box Plymouth
I was excited to visit The Box in Plymouth recently, as I was invited to book a VIP preview slot and was able to visit the museum before it was officially open to the public.
To quote from their website “The opening of The Box is the most significant cultural initiative in the UK in 2020. The galleries, collections and archives will bring the world to Plymouth and Plymouth to the world. The launch of The Box is also the flagship project of the country’s Mayflower 400 commemorations. The original City Museum and Art Gallery has been completely transformed and extended to combine the Edwardian building with the former City Library and St Luke’s church. The Box also features a striking elevated ‘archive in the sky’ with research and learning facilities, along with a major new public square for gigs, performance, theatre and events”
It felt incredibly special to see the inside of this amazing new purpose-built extension and redevelopment of the whole site. I was particularly looking forward to viewing the new temporary exhibition ‘Mayflower 400: Legend and Legacy’. I was involved in contributing to the content of this exhibition following a meeting with the exhibition Curator and Co-creator Jo Loosemore a couple of years ago. Jo was particularly fascinated by the story of North Devon pottery and its export to the New World and it was great that we both shared this enthusiasm. After our meeting Jo followed up some contacts that I had in Virginia and it was wonderful to see some objects, including North Devon pottery sherds, that had been sent across to the Museum to be featured in this opening exhibition. It was also important for me to Include what happened before the Mayflower embarked to Plymouth on previous encounters with and attempts to colonise the Eastern Seaboard of America. This includes the earlier Expeditions leaving Bideford in the 1580s and sailing out to what is now modern day Roanoke island in North Carolina – indeed the Story of the Lost Colony which warrants another post at some stage as there is much to tell.
I am thrilled to report that Jo very much took all of this on board and made sure it was featured in the exhibition , so thank you Jo for listening and agreeing that is was vital to include this information.
North Devon Pottery 17th C Baluster jar fragment, Flowerdew Hundred, Charlottesville VA, Winston Churchill Fellowship research trip, 2010
Unfortunately, I was unable to take any images of the exhibition as photography was not permitted on the day! The photograph above is one of my own, taken when I viewed a collection of North Devon pottery found in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is indicative of the type and form of vessel that the colonists would have taken with them to Roanoke island. This is a 17th century baluster jar and fragments of these have indeed been found on the island.
