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Monument details
HER Number: | TQ 65 NW 345 |
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Type of record: | Monument |
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Name: | Site of Wrotham Old Pottery works, Borough Green |
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Summary
Site of Wrotham Old Pottery works, a 19th century pottery works.
Grid Reference: | TQ 6098 5788 |
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Map Sheet: | TQ65NW |
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Parish: | BOROUGH GREEN, TONBRIDGE AND MALLING, KENT |
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Monument Types
Protected Status: | Selected Heritage Inventory for Natural England: Site of Wrotham post-medieval Old Pottery Works |
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Full description
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Site of former Wrotham Old Pottery, Borough Green, and associated clay pits, as shown on on 1st and 2nd Edition O/S maps. The site is now disused.
Description from record TQ 65 NW 77:
TQ609580 About 1900 a drainage trench has made by works a Mr Gage across the site of the old Wrotham potworks (to the north of the British Railways Station of Wrotham and Borough Green) which at that time belonged to Messrs Joseph Walls and Company brickmakers of Borough Green. Two complete pottery wasters, a three legged pipkin and a one-handled cup, were excavated from the trench. The potworks supplied pottery for everyday use. A collection of Wrotham Ware was donated to the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, by Dr Glaisher (1) (2) Presumably the pottery operating between at least 1612 and 1777 which was operated by John Livermore, Henry Ifield, George Richardson, Nicholas Hubble and John Eaglestone. Reported as having originated as a brickworks. (3)
The pottery was not of the more elaborate Wrotham ware and was more functional and everyday, with a "dark red body with purplish dark brown glaze". (2)
The Wrotham Old Pottery first appears on the 2nd edition Ordnance Survey mapping. The business first appears in a Kelly's directory in 1895. (5) The site was later developed into the gas works and then quarried for sand in the early 20th century.
The adjacent Claypit Wood, Little Potters Field, Potters Mede and Great Potters Mead recorded in the Tithe Apportionment register, to the west, north and north east of the later pottery site have been taken as evidence of post medieval pottery manufacturing in the area. However, it has been argued that Potters is a corruption of a family name, Pulter (with variant spellings), and that no direct association with potting is evident. (5) The presence of Claypit Woods (recorded as such in the 1840s before Wrotham Old Pottery was established on the site) and the pottery wasters excavated in c.1900 remain and may therefore still suggest small scale pottery manufacture in the earlier post medieval period.
Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 1st edition 1862-1875): Landmark Epoch 1 (Map). SKE30964.
Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 2nd Edition, 1897-1900): Landmark Epoch 2 (Map). SKE30965.
<1> English Ceramics Circle Trans 3 pt 2 1954 105-6 (A.J.B Kiddell) (OS Card Reference). SKE41607.
<2> Arch Cant 77 1962 209 (LRA Grove) (OS Card Reference). SKE35620.
<3> KAR 14 1968 13-17 (J.Ashdown) (OS Card Reference). SKE45241.
<4> Not applicable, SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry, RH Goodsall 'A Third Kentish patchwork' 1970 pp 21-3 (Miscellaneous Material). SKE6440.
<5> Jayne Semple, 2008, The Potters of Wrotham Manor 1283-1600, 442-443 (Article in serial). SKE18110.
Sources and further reading
Cross-ref.
| Source description | --- | Map: Landmark. Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 1st edition 1862-1875): Landmark Epoch 1. |
--- | Map: Landmark. Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 2nd Edition, 1897-1900): Landmark Epoch 2. |
<1> | OS Card Reference: English Ceramics Circle Trans 3 pt 2 1954 105-6 (A.J.B Kiddell). |
<2> | OS Card Reference: Arch Cant 77 1962 209 (LRA Grove). |
<3> | OS Card Reference: KAR 14 1968 13-17 (J.Ashdown). |
<4> | Miscellaneous Material: Not applicable. SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry. RH Goodsall 'A Third Kentish patchwork' 1970 pp 21-3. |
<5> | Article in serial: Jayne Semple. 2008. The Potters of Wrotham Manor 1283-1600. English Ceramic Circle vol 20 part 2: 423-447. 442-443. |