ON SOME FRAGMENTS OF ENGLISH EARTHENWARE. 



porary ; then nothing would account for its being found in such a 

 place together with comparatively modern potteries. 



Before leaving our interesting specimen, we must notice the 

 peculiar indentations strongly marked at the base ; the same 

 impressions are to be seen on the feet of the most ancient pieces 

 of German stoneware ; they served a special purpose. Strange as 

 it may appear, the old potter did not know the simple process of 

 cutting off with a thin wire the pot which had just been shaped on 

 the wheel, but he had to wrench it off with his hand; thus, the 

 bottom of the foot became much warped, and to make it stand 

 straight again, the workman placed it upon a flat stone, and 

 impressing his thumb round the edge, made the under part resume 

 its former flatness. 



A large and coarse handle, rudely incised with a knife, made of 

 the same red clay, coated over with dullish green glaze, and 

 belonging therefore to the same sort of pottery as the jug described 

 above, was found at the same place. Notwithstanding its broken 

 condition, it offers nevertheless some interest, as showing that 

 green glazed pottery may be found where we do not expect to 

 meet with anything so ancient as Norman utensils. 



The fig. 2 reproduces a fragment of some large dish which 

 brings us to the second 

 part of the seventeenth 

 century ; many of these 

 dishes have been pre- 

 served up to our time ; 

 they are generally in- 

 scribed with dates rang- 

 ing from 1650, for the 

 earliest ones, to 1780. 

 This one is of a bright 

 red colour, obtained by a thin coat of red clay, laid over the 

 lighter clay of which the body of the dish is formed. It is 

 decorated with cursive lines of yellow clay, by the process 

 known under the name of " Slip Decoration." A rough tracery 

 of dots and lines, light or dark according to the colour of 



