Blue & white at Shellness

A day out last Sunday to the Isle of Sheppey, to the north tip at Shellness, with views across the estuary to Whitstable...

Although Shellness is a private gated community of appallingly ugly chalet style buildings, there is public access to the beach, where a massive amount of mostly cockle shells can be found (obviously how the area got its name).

As well as shells, blue and white pottery fragments also wash up here.

Drawing on the beach

Emma and Elisabeth were up at the South Bank this evening watching the Parkour...and saw this...

Mudlarking in 1948

BEACHCOMBERS

Thanks to Lisa Larsson for this link. Apologies for the Microsoft advert.

Suffolk fragments

An old friend, Simon Farr, came to visit last week. We used to work together over 20 years ago at the Albany Theatre. He has lived with his family in Aldeburgh, Suffolk for some time now so meeting up was a special event. Simon is a political cartoonist for The Guardian, and his wife Annie Lee is a potter. They run a B&B.

I showed him this project, and on his return he sent me a picture of some shards he found in Aldeburgh. He wants to find all the bits so that he can join them together to re-make the plate. I started this project wanting to do the same!

 

Postscript: I went to visit Simon and Annie in May...we went to look at the beach where Simon had found these fragments, but didn't find much on that day. Close by is a working brickworks, so the broken ceramic may have arrrived on the beach the same way as the stuff I found in Halstow, much further south in the Swale estuary. Household debris was burned and brought by barge to the brickworks, the ash extracted to use in the kilns, and the remainder dumped.

Discover Greenwich

Last Sunday I visited the spanking new Discover Greenwich, a permanent exhibition housed in the Royal Naval College, which tells the continuing story of the Old Royal Naval College and Maritime Greenwich. I came across an exhibit of pottery fragments:

1. Ceramic chamber pot, late 17th century
Miniature, or child-sized chamber pot in tin-glazed ware with Chinese-style decoration showing figures in a landscape, probably made in Southwark.
2. Ceramic chamber pot, mid 18th century
Large chamber pot in London-area post-medieval redware with internal lead glaze. Probably made at Woolwich or Deptford.
3. Ceramic chamber pot, mid 18th century
Chamber pot in Westerwald stoneware, imported from the Rhineland, Germany. It is decorated with an ornate floral rosette opposite the handle and large lions and medallions.
4. Ceramic dish, late 17th or 18th century
London-area post-medieval redware probably made at Woolwich or Deptford
5. Ceramic plate, early to mid-18th century
Tin-glazed with decoration in darker blue on a pale blue background, showing a peacock standing in a landscape with a border of flowers, a butterfly and a dragonfly.
6. Ceramic dish, 17th century
Tin-glazed with polychrome decoration, showing part of the leaves, stem and petals of a flower. Probably made in Southwark 1630-80.

On the way back I found the tide was out, so I did a spot of beachcombing and found a hoard of blue and white...

Sex Toys?

I had originally fancied the pottery that washed up at Deptford was the result of the East India Company repairing its ships here. Porcelain was carried in the holds, serving as ballast, with the more precious and perishable tea on top, and so might be found littering the shore...but then I found blue and white further upstream, and also it wasn't porcelain, perhaps bone china, but mostly delftware or earthenware. The Museum of London then told me it was because everyone used to discard their rubbish in the river.

I later discovered this was the case up until the mid 19th century when the process of waste regulation began. The Public Health Act of 1875 charged local authorities with the duty to arrange the removal and disposal of waste. By the end of the 19th century household waste was collected daily in moveable ash bins, and was sorted by hand (usually by women or girls) into salvageable materials.

A large proportion of waste was recycled, but breeze (fine ash) and hard core (rough stuff) from incinerated material was used in building materials. The broken pottery I found in Kent was brought down with ash by Thames barges to the brick works, where bricks used to build the prospering cities and factories were handmade up until the early 20th century.

Martin from The Herb Garden came by at Creekside Centre and, seeing a rather weird shaped bit of pot in the mosaic, told me that porcelain sex toys used to be imported from China and the ships' cargo was often confiscated by customs and thrown in the river. That was why there was so much pottery washed up, he said.

Then I got an email from Cheryl who lives opposite the centre: "Thanks for your email about your show. Janet mentioned the willow patterned ballast dumping near here. Also that a marble dildo was jettisoned? I am doing my 3rd year dissertation on vibrators. Yes. Any material at all would be gratefully received."