As part of Heritage Open Days last week, forty-six of us crowded into the Kingsley Room at The Burton to hear Sadie Green give a captivating talk on the links between our ceramic heritage and our maritime past. The link to the sea was crucial, not only for assembling the materials needed to produce pottery, but for reaching the overseas markets which stimulated its production.

Red ‘body clay’ came from Fremington, while the fine ball clay used for the slip (liquid clay) came – as now – from Petersmarland. Local gravel was also used to give the pottery its strength, furze and timber were needed for firing the kilns, and lead ore was imported to make the glaze onto which the distinctive ‘sgraffito’ designs were drawn. 

A core market was the east coast of America, where northern Devon pottery played an essential role in the colonisation of the area and in the development of the tobacco plantations which brought so much wealth to Bideford. 

During the talk we were able to handle ‘sherds’ – small pieces of pot – found on Instow beach and compare them to pieces now displayed in American museums. There were fragments of ‘pipkins’ – squat three-footed saucepans with stubby handles – and tall baluster jars used for storing food like preserved fish or butter. The remains of some of these, known to be from northern Devon, have been found at some of the earliest English settlements on the American east coast. 

Some of the most treasured pieces in the American museums are glazed sgraffito pots with beautifully intricate designs known as Jamestown Complex Floral. Only up to about 5% of pottery produced in northern Devon was of this type, with its honey-coloured glaze and beautiful decorations, of which The Burton contains some lovely examples. 

When Stella Maris Court was being developed in 1999, archaeologists found a very substantial quantity of broken pottery dating from the late 17^th century. Included among this were some sgraffito pieces which strongly echo the Jamestown designs, believed to have been made at Crockers Old Pottery on North Road. 

As The Burton reminds us on its website, the story of pottery production and trade with America is a tale of hard work, access to resources, skills, entrepreneurship and new lives in foreign lands. It is a story which reminds us why Bideford was such an important centre for pottery production and its key role in the colonisation and development of North America more generally.