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Summary

Site of 17th century pottery kiln.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses

• Old DCC SMR Ref: SS41NE/195

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• POTTERY MANUFACTURING SITE (Post Medieval to XVIII - 1540 AD to 1800 AD)

Full description

North Devon District Council Rescue Archaeology Unit, 1990, Untitled Source (Report - Excavation). SDV14356.

In Mill street, Great Torrington, building work revealed 17th century saggars. Brick ? kilns reported. Recorded by NDDC RAU in 1990. Other details: Site 164.

Horner, W., 1993, Untitled Source (Worksheet). SDV14360.

Ponsford, M., 1994, Post-medieval Britain in 1993, 170 (Article in Serial). SDV177642.

Horner, W., 1995, Untitled Source (Personal Comment). SDV14146.

The finds from this discovery have since been on display in Torrington Museum. They include 3 coarse clay saggars and a number of clay pipes. The driver of the JCB who discovered the site was interviewed in 1994 and has indicated where the site now lies, beneath the kitchen of a new house to the rear of Caynton House.

Allan, J. + Cramp, C. + Horner, B., 2007, The Post-Medieval Pottery at Castle Hill, Great Torrington, North Devon, 135, 140 (Article in Serial). SDV344705.

Post-medieval pottery kiln found at Castle Hill during the construction of houses in 1989 and destroyed without record. The machine digging of the foundations exposed a featured described by the machine driver as a round chamber like a large oven. He recalls that the cavity was circa 0.25 metres below the ground surface, 0.5 metres deep and 0.75 metre wide with blackened sides. Stacked towards the back of the feature were quantities of broken pottery, a near-complete jug and three complete saggers. Burnt slates and many clay tobacco pipe fragments were also found within and around the site. The date of the kiln is uncertain but the pipes indicate that it was abandoned after 1600. The jug is probably of 17th century date. It is unlikely that the kiln functioned after Cayton House was built. Production, therefore, presumably ceased before 1735.

Evans, P. + McConnell, 2010, Sydney House Car Park, South Street, Great Torrington, Devon: An Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment, 6 (Report - Assessment). SDV354455.

Cramp, C., 2015, North Devon Relief-Decorated Ceramics in the Household, 197, 211 (Article in Monograph). SDV365391.

Five of the tile designs recorded from secular sites can now be attributed to the kilns in the Castle Hill pottery.

Allan, J. + Griffiths, N. + Mills, A., 2020, Some Recent Finds of North Devon Pottery, 235; Appendix 4 (Article in Serial). SDV364780.

The proportion of slipware (including sgraffito-decorated and trailed slipwares) in the series of samples of late 17th- and early 18th-century kiln waste from Great Torrington ranged from 9% to 15% of sherds.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV4757 - Excavation of Kiln Dump at Great Torrington

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