Gone to pot?
Derek
Hall
Email:
dhall@suat.demon.co.uk
Pottery
is the most common find from archaeological excavations in Scotland’s medieval
burghs, it does not decay and always survives when organic material does
not. Since the first urban excavations
of the mid 1970’s we now have a vast assemblage of material, this paper aims to
consider what information we can gain from this material and what our future
research aims should be.
It
is appropriate to be giving this paper in Perth as it was the High Street
excavations of the mid to late 1970’s that first indicated the vast range of
pottery that was present from deposits in the burgh. Something in excess of 42,000 sherds were recovered from the High
Street excavation alone, I know because I have counted them out of their bags
and back again!
It
was clear from the High Street excavations that pottery from many areas of
England and Continental Europe was present from the medieval town. I would like to begin by giving a rough
guide to these imports before concentrating on what we can now say about the
Scottish medieval pottery industry.
Shelly
wares
If
we examine the pottery from the earliest phases of occupation in Perth, dating
to the early 12th century or before, it is quite striking that
virtually all the material is imported.
The most intriguing material present is the sizeable group of shelly
wares from the 75 High Street excavation.
Jars used for cooking are the most common vessel form represented
although there is also a cauldron leg which is only paralleled by a find from
the Billingsgate excavations in London.
These shelly wares have been identified as being from South Eastern
England and have also been recovered from excavations in Norway (Bryggen
Papers). There is an ongoing discussion
regarding the dating of this pottery as specialists from London have argued
that the material from 75 High Street can date no later than 1150 but both
myself and George Haggarty feel that it must be earlier. The biggest concentration of shelly ware
from 75 High Street comes from Phase 1 and there must be a strong chance that
these levels predate the founding of the burgh and must predate 1150. It is worth remembering that a more recent
excavation directly across the High Street at 80-86, now Virgin records,
located a wattle lined ditch possibly forming a boundary around an early
version of St John’s church that was carbon dated to 990+/- 50 AD (Moloney and
Coleman 1997, 707-782). This early date
surely indicates that there is some sort of occupation in Perth in the 10th
or 11th centuries. None of
this fabric has been recovered from excavations in Leith, another early trading
port. A bid has been submitted to
Historic Scotland to carbon date the carbonised deposits on some of these
vessels so in the near future we may finally have a date bracket to consider.
Greywares
Early
whitewares
Pottery
produced in Stamford in England and Andenne in Belgium in the early 12th
century looks visually very similar and can often be difficult to correctly
identify, both fabrics are also represented in early levels from Perth.
Yorkshire
Type wares
By
the 13th and 14th centuries the scene is dominated by the
very well made and distinctively glazed wares made at various kilns in
Yorkshire (McCarthy and Brooks 1988).
In the early years of work on Scottish ceramics this fabric was always
described as Scarborough ware but in recent years due to the realisation that
there were many more kilns producing this fabric it has been decided that it is
safer to call this material Yorkshire Type wares. Needless to say we are leaving the definition of the various
production centres safely in the hands of our English colleagues! Without a doubt these vessels have an
enormous effect on the local Scottish industries when they finally get going as
can be seen by the many attempts at copying the vessel form and
decoration. Probably the best known
vessel type in this fabric is the knight jug, a vessel which has knights on
horse back riding around the outside.
French
wares
Until
very recently it had always been assumed that French imported pottery was very
much a West Coast phenomenon due to the route taken by the wine trade however
George Haggarty’s recent survey of all French material found in Scotland has
indicated that the wares of Saintonge, Rouen and elsewhere are actually much
more common across the whole country (Haggarty forthcoming). In passing it is worth explaining that
George’s survey forms part of a new review of pottery imported into Medieval
Scotland that is being undertaken by the Scottish group of medieval
ceramicists.
Low
Countries wares
In
the 13th and 14th centuries Redwares and greywares from
the Low Countries are common finds in the East coast burghs and probably
reflect the presence and influence of Flemings in the Scotland.
Rhenish
stonewares
Around
about 1350 a entirely new type of pottery begins to appear from Germany called
stoneware. This pottery is very highly
fired and becomes popular amongst the burgesses of Perth and elsewhere
(Gaimster 1997).
Scottish
wares
Essentially
the Scottish pottery industry was producing variations of two fabrics, redwares
and white wares. These two fabrics are
being manufactured from different clay sources, alluvial carse river valley
clays in the case of the redwares and white firing lacustrine clays in the case
of the whitewares. The earliest of the
two would appear to be the white gritty industry which we believe was in
production from at least the mid 12th century. George Haggarty suggested many years ago
that this industry was brought into Scotland by the monastic orders of Northern
England and I agree that this would seem to be the most likely reason for its
arrival (Haggarty 1984). In recent
years we began to identify regional trends in the vessel forms that were being
made in this fabric. For example in the
Borders we have the very distinctive thin walled straight sided cooking pot, in
Fife a more globular vessel often with two handles, the Fifers obviously did
not want to burn their fingers! (Hall 1997).
As already mentioned earlier the jugs forms in White gritty ware are
influenced by vessels fromYorkshire.
Recent chemical sourcing is beginning to suggest that the gritty ware
production centres may have been more widespread than previously thought (Will
et al forthcoming). Our basic problem
is the lack of a decent chronology and to indicate the sort of lengths that
pottery specialists often go to I have suggested recently that the highly fired
sherds of gritty ware that are often found are an indication that the potters
are attempting to copy the Rhenish stonewares.
If true this would allow us to date any deposits containing this type of
gritty ware to the mid 14th century. This theory remains to be properly tested.
Production
centres
To
successfully define a chronology for our native fabrics we need to properly
excavate and scientifically date some kilns.
At this moment in time only four sites have been investigated at
Stenhouse and Throsk in Stirlingshire, Colstoun in East Lothian and Rattray in
Aberdeenshire. Of these four sites only
one, at Colstoun, was a White Gritty ware production centre, Stenhouse and
Rattray were producing medieval redware and Throsk post medieval redware
In
recent years Historic Scotland have started to provide funds for the analysis
and publication of both Stenhouse and Colstoun kilns. This work has just lately
been carried out by Derek Hall at SUAT Ltd.
The publication of the Throsk production site was undertaken by Caldwell
and Dean (1992) and the excavations at
Rattray by HK and JC Murray (1993). In
this paper it is only possible to summarise what has been done on these sites
and highlight the main points of interest.
White Gritty wares
The
kilns at Colstoun were first discovered as a result of the digging of grouse
shooting butts in 1939. At this time
some limited excavation was undertaken by Lady Broun Lindsay and later, in 1971
this was completed by Dr David Clarke for the National Museum of Scotland. In 1969 another kiln was excavated by Ben
Edwards again for the National Museum.
All the pottery from Clarke’s excavations was published together by
Cathy Brooks (PSAS 1978-80) but nothing was done with the important information
regarding the kilns. Historic Scotland
commissioned SUAT to catalogue the pottery from Ben Edward’s excavation and
pull together all the available evidence for the kilns. As part of this process and following a
suggestion by Sarah Jennings and Alan Vince SUAT also re-excavated Ben Edward’s
Type 3 kiln and obtained an archaeomagnetic date of 1320-1350 AD for the final
firing of this kiln. Unfortunately
despite two attempts SUAT were unable to rediscover David Clarke’s kilns which
were both Musty’s Type 2 (Musty 1974).
Cataloguing the pottery from Edward’s kiln shows that 97% of the vessels
are glazed jugs; while cooking pots are only represented by 20 sherds. The fill of Clarke’s kilns on the other hand
produced fragments mainly of cooking pots.
Colstoun also produced a sizeable assemblage of kiln furniture. This material is largely represented by very
distinctive waisted cylindrical shaped kiln props; there are 51 from Edwards
kiln and 170 from Clarkes kilns (Fig. 3), similar material was also recovered
from Stenhouse. The information from
the three excavated kilns at Colstoun might suggest that different kiln types
were producing different vessel types at least, in their final firing (Hall
1999).
Redwares
It
would appear that a lot of the Scottish medieval burghs, particularly those in
close proximity to a river valley, were using locally produced redwares. The big question is where were the kiln
sites? If we look at Perth as an
example we have yet to find any evidence for pottery kilns within the burgh
limits, indeed the potters were not members of the Guildry Incorporation. In the late 50’s the local redware in Perth
was called Kinnoull Ware on the strength of a sizeable assemblage of pottery
from a site beside Kinnoull Church on the east side of the River Tay (Stevenson
and Henshall 1956-7, 250-252). However
having examined this material I can find no kiln waste or kiln furniture. It is worth saying however that the
existence of a water source and clay supply does not rule this site completely
out of the equation. To the west of
Perth we have an area called Claypotts but so far there is no evidence for
pottery manufacture in this area either.
Interestingly enough until the mid 19th century there was a
brick and tile works in the vicinity so maybe this explains the place
name. Our first piece of kiln furniture
from Perth was discovered recently at the excavations on the site of the new
council headquarters. This site lies
outside the burgh limits on its north side and would seem to suggest that at
least some of the pottery production for Perth is taking place in an extra
mural location. Kiln waste from recent
excavations to the north of Arbroath abbey may also suggests that are kiln
sites in that vicinity. Let us look now
at the three identified Scottish redware production centres which are all
located in rural areas.
The
kilns at Rattray were discovered during the excavations of the deserted
medieval burgh (Murray 1993). These
kilns appear to represent small-scale local pottery production specifically for
the burgh. The kilns, essentially
Musty’s type 2 double flue, also demonstrated the use of kiln props similar to
those recovered from Colstoun and Stenhouse.
Rattray produced a mixture of vessel types including jugs, jars and
bowls. This small-scale production during the 13th or 14th centuries
at least, this may be more representative of the general situation in Scotland,
rather than larger production sites serving a wider region.
The eleven pottery kilns at
Stenhouse, which lies to the North of Falkirk, were discovered as a result of
sand quarrying by the Carron Iron Works and the excavation and recording was
carried out by the late Doreen Hunter, using local volunteers. Following the excavations, the vast bulk of
the pottery assemblage was put in store by Falkirk Museum and, apart from
abortive attempts in the 1970s was never written up. Historic Scotland commissioned SUAT to write up both the pottery
and the site records, and the completed report has been recently published in
Medieval Archaeology (Hall 2001, 97-168).
Probably of most interest at Stenhouse is the apparent link between the
potters and the Knights Hospitallers at Torphichen, which lies some 15km to the
south east of the production centre. At
least two of the vessels were decorated with Maltese crosses and it was
discovered that the knights owned land at Stenhouse in the 16th
century. The figure jugs from this site
are very distinctive with padded face masks and incised saltire crosses (Fig.
2, 1-10), the final report argues that this style of decoration could be a link
with the Knights revival of the crusading movement (MacQuarrie 1985,
114-117). This assemblage would seem to
date no earlier than the late 15th/early 16th century
based on vessel form. The obvious
problem is deciding whether the knights were responsible for the setting up of
the industry in the first place or whether they were commissioning the potters
to make vessels for the preceptory.
One of the kilns produced three complete vessels for which the only
parallel is a sugar refining jar that was used in the sugar refining process (Brooks 1983, 1-14). It is tempting to see these vessels as
another possible link to the knights of St John at Torphicen who certainly
would have had access to sugar cane plantations in the Mediterranean.
The
production centre at Throsk is essentially of post medieval date operating in
the 17th and 18th centuries. It is of most interest as it is a rare Scottish example of
pottery manufacturing that is actually documented. It is worth stressing at this point that no kilns at Throsk have
been excavated (Caldwell and Dean 1992, 1-46).
Future
Research
It
seems true to say that Scottish medieval pottery pottery studies has now come
of age largely due to the support and funding of Historic Scotland and the hard
work and imagination of various specialists.
We are now in a position to answer specific questions and ask new
ones. For example recent excavations in
the far north of Scotland at Robert’s Haven in Caithness located a sizeable
assemblage of organic tempered pottery of local manufacture. Originally thought to be of Viking date when
carbon dated this material has actually proved to be medieval (Hall
forthcoming). Admittedly all the
vessels are specifically for fish oil production so we may not be looking at
normal local pottery manufacture but it does pose a question as to what is
happening in those areas where a clay source is not so readily available. I firmly believe that the Carse of Gowrie
must be a good candidate for the location of pottery production simply due to
the existence of a sizeable clay resource in the Errol area (Hall 1998). Recently I have been struck by the fact that
all the excavated medieval production centres are in the vicinity of either
castles or tower houses possibly suggesting that there might be a baronial or
manorial element to the promotion and control of pottery manufacture. Along with water and fuel supply does this
give us another clue when we are looking for kiln sites? The suggestion of monastic influence on the
early Scottish pottery industry is also something that needs to be explored and
tested. Finally the recent introduction
of Inductively Coupled Mass Spectroscopy (chemical sourcing) is producing very
important and exciting results and gives us another tool in our search for kiln
sites (Chenery, Phillips and Haggarty forthcoming). In closing I would like to say that Scottish pottery studies
have not gone to pot but are living and breathing and beginning to produce
interesting results.
Reference
List
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C M 1983 `Aspects of the sugar-refining
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