Alfred Watkins, “A ‘cottage’ pottery near Kempley”

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A “COTTAGE” POTTERY NEAR KEMPLEY.

By Alfred Watkins, F.R.P.S.

(Read 28th June, 1928.)

The discovery of the scrap-heap of a third Herefordshire pottery of ancient date is due to Mr. Cooper Neal, who heard locally of the fragments being carted away to mend roads, brought some of them to his museum, and then guided me to the site. He deputed me to give this account of it, as I was the recorder of the two previously discovered potteries, at Whitney-on-Wye and at Deerfold.

This one is in Herefordshire, on the edge of Upton Bishop parish, a quarter-mile due east of Daubies Farm. We reached it by walking through the Queen Wood from Woodcock’s Farm, Kempley Green, where the owner lives.

It is close against the edge of the wood, where a small stream begins, in a meadow called Holmes, and there were enclosures of cottages and farm buildings, now demolished, below on this little brook. The kiln by local repute was thought to be within the wood, but I could trace no foundations. The grass-covered heap of shards is being carted away.

The fragments show wide-mouth jars, steens and jugs to be the chief wares made, but there is also a small bell-mouthed “tyg,” or cup, holding less than a third of a pint, such as was found at Whitney, one fragment having a handle, but with no evidence yet whether it had three handles, as at Whitney. It is of the dark type of clay, thin, and well glazed, in and out, with black manganese glaze.

We saw no red clay dishes as at Whitney, nor the shallow upright-side food vessels, as at Deerfold. The same two glazes are used as at Whitney and Deerfold, black manganese and green lead. The chief clay used is either the dark kind of muddy brown type, as at the other two potteries, or a lighter terra-cotta. There is little evidence of the bright red brick clay being used, as at the other two potteries. I show a piece of the stone “bat” supporting the pot in the kiln, with green glaze run down over it. No narrow necks of jars were seen, but plenty of various handles.

There are no instances of thumb-decoration or scolloped pattern or slip-decoration, as at Whitney; but a decoration of parallel ribs close together encircling the vessel, not found at either of the two other potteries, is frequent. The dark glaze has often an uneven sandy surface.

{145} It should be noted that this pottery, like the other two, for fuel reasons, is in, or on, the edge of a large wood, such as decided the site of Herefordshire iron furnaces.

I had been puzzled to name, and discover the source of, the brown clay at the other potteries. An acquaintance with a better knowledge of mineralogy than I possess, told me that it was probably a boulder clay of glacial origin, and is known as “till.” This was confirmed by reference to this word in the Oxford Dictionary, which defines it as “Stiff clay, more or less impervious to water, in unstratified deposits, forming an ungenial subsoil. Originally a term of agriculture in Scotland.” The word is also given in technical works as a geological term for boulder clay, although not mentioned in several technical text-books on clays. I must here mention that leading to the old pottery in Deerfold is a lane called “Clay-pits Lane.”

I am now obliged to bring into this record a reference to sighted tracks, because their systematic formation was the sole cause of my discovering what I now have to relate, the source of the clay.

Like the two other potteries, I found this one was on an old sighted track, or at the crossing of two. The most evident one is sighted on Churchdown Hill, near Cheltenham, comes through Hartpury House, Newent Church, Yatton ancient Church (of Norman date), also through Woodredding’s Farm, Tump Farm, Holme Lacy, and other corroborations.

Then my eye caught on the map an adjacent straight track through the Queen Wood and the pottery site, pointing to Linton; it there bounds the north-west side of the churchyard, and to Eccleswall Castle. At the other end, this alignment is sighted on Bradlow Hill, above Ledbury. It passes through a road junction and hamlet four miles from the pottery, marked as Tillputsend. This name, combined with the probability of there having been a clay-pits lane to the pottery, as at Deerfold, and with my observation that “end” in place-names usually signifies the end of some practical purpose of a track, sent me to the said hamlet to investigate, having first got information of ponds from the 6-inch map, and pits between this and the scrap heap. The cottager there said “some folks call it Tillpitsend,” thus confirming my surmise, and a path from Drews Farm brought me to at least two pits from which clay had been dug.

These pits are on the edge of a bank dropping down to a curiously hollowed sloping valley meadow, with a deep pond (also containing boulder clay) in the centre. The whole had to me the aspect of glacial action. We had to dig below a layer of marl soil to get at the clay or till in the pit, and below that was harder marl and small stones. The brown clay is gluey, tenacious, {146} and water-holding, and when brought home and fired proved to be of the same hue as the lighter shades of the shards in the scrap heap; but evidently a darker clay had also been used, and all the pits were not yet disclosed.

A path from the pits leads to Tillers Green, the nearest cottages, a hamlet where there evidently lived the men who dug at the till-pits, and there are the remains of brick-ponds. An old inhabitant told me that he just remembered bricks being made there.

Later in the day I found also on the alignment, near Windcross, a pit marked “Old Quarry” on the 6-inch map, where there was no stone, nor gravel, and it must have been a clay pit, although cultivation had now ploughed all clay in.

There is a Tiltups End near Nailsworth, surely a slight transposition to make sense of a queer name, for to tilt-up-on-end is a familiar gesture. Tillputsend, Tillers Green, and working till-pits all together—how can we escape the terrible crime of guessing at word derivations? The labour of digging into the heavy clinging stuff—the till—made one appreciate the work which “tillers of the soil” undergo. And then in a letter from Major F. C. Tyler, of Devon (to whom as Hon. Secretary of the Straight Track Club I had communicated these finds), came this suggestion: “It seems to be connected with my own family name. This derived (so it is said), Norman Tillieres, Tillers, Tyghelere, and various other forms. (Lat. Tegula; A.S. Tigele = a tile.) Tillers Green must be the same as Tylers Green, which occurs in more than one place.” And in Bosworth’s Anglo Saxon Dictionary, I find Tigel defined as “ A tile, brick, anything made of clay, a pot, vessel. To this day porringers are tigs by working potters.” So it is very clear that the tillers of Tillers Green made tiles from the till they dug, and the potters made from it those cups called tygs, to be found broken up in the scrap heap I have tried to describe.¹

¹ Illustrations for this Paper are postponed until the issue of the Transactions for 1929, as additional examples of the pottery were dug out in that year.