Pottery, Glass and Enamel

The Potter's art is one of the most ancient of handicraft; it is alluded to in the first book of Chronicals, chap. IV. verse 3.

In Greece and Etruria this art flourished supremely, and the specimens extant, mainly designed as prizes for the victors in the most renowned games and combats of the age, attest at once to the patience, skill, and taste of their manipulators.

 

Under the sway of imperial Rome, Grecian artists long continued to be employed not only as manufacturers, but teachers of the art, wherever the conquered region of the Roman sword opened a way, often into regions hitherto all but unknown to commerce, science and civilisation. Even Britain, the ULTIMA THULE of the area, received no small share of such attention: indeed it would appear, considering its distance from the grand seat of empire, to have been a singularly favoured province, as is fairly evidenced in the numerous works of public utility constructed by the state, as military roads, bridges, temples, and other structures; whilst the magnificence and extent of private villas -- such for instance as the one at Woodchester, in Gloucestershire, and that near Bognor, in Sussex and many others which have come to light since a century ago -- sufficiently exemplify the wealth and high position of their proprietors.

The ceramic art was equally extended with others, and Romano-British potteries arose, wherever the best clays were discovered abundantly. Whole kilns have been disclosed in Yorkshire, Northamptonshire

and in other regions, and emmense quantities of half or partially dried and broken crockery in the marshes of the Medway, near Upchurch, and also upon the banks of the Severn, prove the former existence of extensive potteries in these localities.

Wherever existant, the site of every Roman villa, military station, or fortified town, will, upon examination, be found replete with debris of crockery and tiles, the multifarious fragments of which cumber the ground, often to a depth of from twelve to fourteen feet, in proportion to the amount of subsequent occupation.

Three fourths of this mass was calculated to have been the product of this country, made doubtlessly under the active superintendence of skilled artificers from Italy, Spain, or southern France, Each of these countries being contemporaneously famed for some particular description of ware. Under ordinary circumstances, therefore, we should anticipate the existence of similar remains at this settlement on the Cheshire shore; but the total removal of its very site (analogous instances having occurred at Flamborough Head, Yorkshire and at Reculvers, Kent sufficiently accounts for the slight appearance of pottery of this era. Some fragments of dark slate-coloured ware, and probably of sepulchral urns, are apparently all that was had of note. Centuries ago, the pottery, together with any remains of buildings, must have been washed away into what was the underlying strata of the submerged sea-banks.

 

Glass and Enamel

A few small objects in glass and enamel, of similar date, require notice here. They would seem to have been lost from the person in the glades of the ancient forest, and were washed out of the remaining vegetable accretion by the tides, comprising enamelled ornaments of brooches, etc., with beads, and heads of bronze pins in glass. A fine bead which was found in common with others analogous in composition, size, and form, excavated by tha famous Archaeologist Faussett and others from ancient cemetaries in Kent, was believed to be of Roman manufacture.

Those large beads appeared to have been highly prized by our Saxon forefathers, who used them as gauds or central beads (one to three in number) of their necklaces, the others being chiefly of small size and generally uniform in character.

 

Our Hilbury Island example was thrown to the surface by a rabbit which had selected for its burrow a portion of the site of the old burying-ground attached to the religious CELLE of monks (connected with the Abbey of St.Werburg in Chester), where also part of a Saxon sepulcheral cross was uncovered in or about 1830, it is worthy of note that all the antiquities occurring here proved to be of early date. The glass composing the bead was of a beautiful cobalt-blue and transparent; the enamels, which were opaque, consisted of a vein or marbling of yellow, intertwined by threads of green, the effect of the combination being pleasing to the eye. I know not of it's present whereabouts.

Vitreous compositions are known to have been in common use in ancient Egypt and Etruria, and remarkably fine examples , from Thebes and other cities, these can be seen in the National Collection in the British Museum. Undoubtedly the earliest specimens of enamel found in Cheshire are those ornamenting Roman brooches of the first, second, and third centuries. Their prevailing colours are blue, brown, scarlet, crimson, and green, the last two having often apparently faded into maroon and olive.

 

At least one-half - an unusually large proportion - of the fibulae of this period had been thus ornamented; but most have suffered from decomposition, and possibly in colour, from the dyeing properties of the decaying vegetable matter which they had been embedded in for 1700 years. It may, nevertheless, be doubted whether any locality in England has produced a larger number retaining so perfectly this coloured decoration. in this country, fine examples are of rare occurance. I have seen one complete and most beautifully decorated fibula recently in a club member’s collection; it is not known the location in which this find occurred but it must have belonged to someone of high standing; the pin was still intact and in perfect working order. These are very rare and, of course are now subject to reporting and recording under the new Act of Parliament- Treasure Act 1996 -(code of practice), which now covers all objects whatever it's manufacture properties.

It appears that most if not all the substances now employed in the manufacture of of coloured glazes or enamel, were known to and used by the ancients, as quartz, flint, felspar, gypsum, borax, common salt, soda, oxide of lead, etc. The chief colours were produced by admixture of these materials with oxide of manganese, copper, iron, chromium or cobalt.