Figure 8. — Saltglaze "house" teapots, a. Fragment (enlarged) from the 

 Rosewell refuse pit; A, teapot resembling the design of Rosevvell. 



The emigration to the colonies of potters from the 

 Rhineland, the Netherlands, and England has added 

 imtneasurably to the archeologist's problems, for 

 it is often extremely difficult to distinguish between 

 wares produced by the same men before and after 

 they moved to America. The arrival at Yorktown, 

 Virginia, of an English potter who was almost 

 certainly trained in London or Bristol has resulted in 

 the utmost confusion in the identification of brown 

 stonewares hitherto attrilnited to factories in or near 

 London. 



Although his kilns ha\e not yet been located in 

 Yorktown, there is little douijt that the English 

 potter was in business there. Wasters and broken 

 kiln furniture found on most Yorktown sites ap- 

 parently were used as hard-core in the repairing of 

 roads. This is in keeping with .similar practices in 

 England where kiln waste from stoneware and delft- 

 ware kilns was used in the stabilizing of the foreshore 

 of the Thames at Queenhithe and on the Bankside, 

 as well as in the lining of drains and in filling around 

 foundations.^^ Sagger fragments from Yorktown are 

 identical in appearance to those used in London, 

 and so too is the style of the taxern tankards, which 

 were among the principal products of the English 

 kilns. It would seem, however, that the Yorktown 



potter was less successful in maintaining the correct 

 kiln temperatures than were his English counter- 

 parts, for many of the Yorktown pieces are Isadly 

 overfired, with the result that the brown slip became 

 almost purple instead of ginger brown and the gray 

 body became dark and greenish. These features 

 are to be found on a high percentage of the Yorktown 

 wasters as well as on products which were actuallv 

 sold to the public.^^ In contrast, the thousands of 

 wasters from the London kilns that ha\e been exam- 

 ined rarely exhibit these characteristics. 



The foregoing discussion serves to indicate that an 

 element of doubt exists in the identification of brown 

 stonewares from the Rosewell pit. .\mong such items 

 found are two large pitchers — one of which is likely 

 to be of English origin — a small tankard of unusual 

 size and doubtful origin, a large storage jar proi)ably 

 from Yorktown, and another storage jar that may be 

 English. 



Coar.se kitchen pottery is not strongly represented 

 among the finds from the pit, the majority of these 

 sherds coming from the ploughed top of a deposit to 

 the east of the mansion that, as yet, is unexca\ated. 

 Recovered fragments of such items include sherds 

 from simple lead-glazed cream pans probalily im- 

 ported from England and other utilitarian pans of 



3' Adrian Oswald, "A London .Stoneware Pottery, Recent 

 Excavations at Bankside," The Connoismir, London, January 

 1951, vol. 126, no. 519, pp. 183-185. 



3* J. Paul Hudson, "Early Yorktown Pottery," Antiques, 

 May 1958, vol. 73, no. 5, pp. 472-473. 



PAPER 18: EXCAVATIONS AT ROSEVVELL 



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