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Early
Pottery Works |
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Source:
"The Borough of Stoke-upon-Trent" John Ward, 1843 |
Early
Pottery Works:
"At
that period, as Dr. Plott informs us, 'a Potter's oven was ordinarily about
eight feet high, and six feet wide, of a round coped form.' It was, no doubt,
sheltered by some kind of out-work, or penthouse, to preserve the regularity
of the heat; which, according to the testimony of elderly people, was in the
most ancient times a wall of clods, but afterwards of broken seggars, roofed
over with boughs and clods, and appropriately termed a hovel.
One
such hovel, with thatched sheds, as workshops, attached, for the Thrower,
Presser, Handler, (Stouker) and other operatives, perhaps from five to eight
in number, at a single work; and a drying shed, similar to those now used at
out Tileries; a tank for preparing the diluted clay, in which it was
evaporated to the proper consistency by the heat of the sun, (and thence
called a sun-pan,) with a smoke-house,
as it was termed , for drying the green ware more expeditiously, - this
cluster of mean buildings gives a specimen of the ancient Potwork, until near
the middle of the last century (that is the mid 1700's), when a spirit of
improvement and enterprize gradually arose, and some of the more successful
and spirited of the manufacturers began to erect for themselves respectable
houses, and improve and enlarge their old-fashioned laboratories."
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