Book

Tin-glazed ware, that is earthenware with a tin-opacified glaze, or'delftware', was manufactured at 19 known sites in London, the first being Aldgate (from c 1570), and the last, Glasshouse Street in Lambeth, ceasing in 1846. The decades following the closure of the Aldgate pothouse in c 1615 or c 1620 Saw tinglazed ware manufactories opening in London with increasing frequency, and with a strong presence south of the River Thames. Despite tailoring output to the market and to new fashions, tin-glazed ware manufacture began to decline in the second half of the 18th century in the face of competition from more durable wares from Staffordshire; the Glasshouse Street pothouse, for example, supplemented its tin-glazed wares with porcelain.
This publication considers the evidence from archaeological interventions between 1979 and 1992 at five tin-glazed ware production sites on the South bank of the Thames: the Montague Close, Pickleherring and Rotherhithe pothouses in Southwark, and the Norfolk House and Glasshouse Street pothouses in Lambeth (Chapter 1). The evidence from each pothouse is analysed separately (Chapters 3-7). Documentary evidence and a stratigraphic Summary of findings relating to pottery production are followed by discussions of kiln furniture (where present) and of the products of each pothouse, with illustrated catalogues of the vessels and tile, as appropriate. Examples of whole vessels in the Museum of London's collection are illustrated as comparisons. These individual pothouse discussions are preceded by a chapter (Chapter 2) which places the London tin-glazed pottery industry in context, and Summarises knowledge of kiln technology and previous studies of the industry South of the river in Southwark and Lambeth. Proximity to the Thames facilitated movement of both raw materials and finished products. Distribution was largely the preserve of the Glass Sellers' Company who sold vessels and tiles, as well as glass, in their shops.
The tin glaze industry of London was a remarkably homogeneous one: the pothouses were manufacturing much the same range of products as each other. This report highlights the vessel forms and Styles, and tile designs which were made at each pothouse, outlining the products of each manufactory recovered during the excavations. Features associated with the production of pottery at each pothouse (eg kilns at Pickleherring) are described and other archaeological evidence (eg kiln furniture, wasters and unfinished wares) is used to narrow provenance to individual manufactories. The production of forms or designs common to more than one pothouse, however, is to be expected: there were regular interchanges of staff among the Southwark and Lambeth pothouses, and a number of designs of floor tiles, for example, were made at both Pickleherring and Rotherhithe. The conclusions that can be drawn from the various types of evidence are brought together in Chapter 8, which also discusses the tin-glazed pottery industries of Southwark and Lambeth in a wider context.
Appendices (Chapter 9) illustrate links between the pothouses, as well as detailing the visual characteristics of the fabrics and chemical composition of the clays employed. With common access to clay sources, the ceramics of the London pothouses are not Surprisingly virtually indistinguishable from each other in terms of clay fabric alone. However, imported calcite-rich clay was mixed with locally sourced clay and some differences in the clay chemistry appear to relate to the geology of the clays on which the pothouses lie. Inductively coupled plasma analysis of vessels and tiles produced at four of the pothouses - Rotherhithe and Pickleherring in Southwark, and Norfolk House and Glasshouse Street in Lambeth - together with comparative data from two tin glaze pothouses north of the river - Aldgate and Hermitage Wapping - has demonstrated that each manufactory produced goods with a unique chemical fingerprint. The combination of typological study and the first systematic investigation of the chemical composition of tinglazed wares from the main London pothouses demonstrates that it will be possible in the future to attribute vessels and tiles to the individual pothouses discussed here.