Ancient British pottery has been found in the barrows and burial mounds in the form of incense cups, drinking and food vessels, and cinerary urns. These have all been made of clays that were found usually on the spot, and are either sun-dried or imperfectly burnt.

The Drinking Vessels

The Drinking Vessels were tall and cylindrical in form, and the incense cups were wider in the centre than at either end.. The urns and food vessels have a similarity of shape, being globular, with or without a neck. The decoration is of the simplest description, such as chevrons, or zigzags, and straight-lined patterns produced by scratching with a stick, or the impressions of a rope tied around the vessel while the clay was soft.

The Romans made pottery in Britain from native clay, and also imported much of the Samian ware. The Roman wares of British manufacture are known as Castor, Up-church, and New Forest wares; they are generally of very good shapes, and are decorated with slips, dots, bosses, and indentations, and are unglazed or slightly glazed (Fig. 68).

The Romano-British Urn

The Romano-British Urn in the illustration has a slight yellow glaze. The pottery made by the Anglo-Saxons is of the same type and pattern as that made by the Saxons on the Continent. It is rough and inartistic in shape, except in some specimens that were made in the south of England, where an imitation of Roman and probably Norman pottery was attempted.

We do not meet much Saxon pottery in England of any importance until we come to the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, when some of the best efforts in tile making and decoration are seen in the beautiful floor-tiles of the early Gothic period. Many examples of these tiles have been preserved in the British and other Museums, and some are still in situ in Westminster Abbey, Malvern, Ely, and Gloucester Cathedrals, and Chertsey Abbey. The designs are often heraldic in character (Fig. 69), and consist of geometrical, floral, animal, and architectural forms. Badges, shields, and texts are also found as decorations, and sometimes the human figure is also represented. The earliest are of one colour, or two, as a yellow or a dull red, and the later ones have several colours. They are generally called "encaustic" tiles.

Slip Wares

Slip Wares were made extensively at Wrotham in Kent as early as 1650, and at Staffordshire, Derby, and other places in England even earlier than this date. Many of them are of quaint and uncouth forms, and are generally covered with a rich green, brown, or yellow glaze, made from copper, manganese, or iron oxides. Curious two-handled, three or four-handled mugs or tygs used for handing round drinks, posset cups or pots, plates, dishes, candlesticks, jugs, and piggins were made in these wares, and decorated with "slip," which is a mixture of clay and water used in the thickness of cream, and which is dropped or trailed from a tube or spouted vessel, on the surface of the ware, forming the decoration according to the fancy of the designer. The colour of the slip varied from light to dark (Fig. 70).

The Dish Of Toft's Ware

The Dish Of Toft's Ware (Fig. 71) is a specimen of the slip decoration, date about 1660. Toft was a potter who had his kiln at Tinker's Clough, near Newcastle in Staffordshire. His work is decorated with coloured slip on a common red clay, with a wash of white or pipe clay, upon which the decoration was laid in red slip; darker tints were used for the outlines, and sometimes white dots. The lead glaze used gave a yellow tint to the white clay coating.

Marbled And Combed Wares

Marbled And Combed Wares, etc., were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in which different coloured bodies were mixed in the paste to form a mottled, marbled, or variegated appearance.

Lambeth

Lambeth has been noted for its potteries from about 1660. Lambeth delft comprised such objects as wine jars, candlesticks, posset pots. The ware is of a pale buff tint; the paste is covered with a white tin-glaze or enamel, and a lead glaze over the decoration. Some plates have figure subjects and floriated borders, which seem to be imitations of Italian majolica (Fig. 72). The names of Griffith and Morgan appear as Lambeth potters in the eighteenth century; and the present "Stiff's" pottery was founded in 1751. The most noted pottery now in London is the manufactory of Messrs. Doulton - "The Lambeth Pottery" - founded in 1811, whose original and beautiful work is so well known to everybody in the present day.

In Staffordshire pictorial delft ware was made in William III. and Queen Anne's time, but was of a coarser kind and less pure in the enamel than Lambeth delft.

Stoneware Of An Extremely Hard And Translucent Kind

Stoneware Of An Extremely Hard And Translucent Kind was made by John Dwight at Fulham, about 1670. He made grey stoneware jugs, flasks, statuettes, and busts. The busts and statuettes were of great excellence. The jugs and tankards were made in imitation of the German "GrŠs" - the so-called "GrŠs de Flandres." These were called in England "Bellarmines," "longbeards," or "greybeards," by way of mockery of the Cardinal. Robert Bellarmine, who was unpopular with the Protestant party in the reign of James I. (Fig. 73).

Salt-Glazed Stoneware

Salt-Glazed Stoneware is still made at the present time at the Fulham works, which are now in possession of Mr. C. J. C. Bailey.

The Salt-Glazed White Stoneware Of Staffordshire

The Salt-Glazed White Stoneware Of Staffordshire was made from 1690 till after 1800. The introduction of the salt glaze ware in Staffordshire is ascribed to the celebrated potter John Philip Elers and his brother David. They are likely to have been Dutchmen who had also worked in the potteries of Nuremberg, and had brought with them the knowledge of the salt-glaze process to Staffordshire, together with the style and ornamentation of the Holland stonewares. Dwight of Fulham made salt-glazed wares before the time that the Elers settled at Bradwell in Staffordshire (1690-1710). John Elers made a revolution in the style of working the English pottery by turning his ware in the lathe instead of the exclusive use of the potter's wheel. The Elers made a red unglazed stoneware chiefly for teapots, cups, saucers, milk jugs, chocolate pots, besides other salt-glazed wares.