Newbigging Pottery, Musselburgh: Ceramic Resource Disk Introduction and Acknowledgments

1 Newbigging Pottery, Musselburgh: Ceramic Resource Disk Introduction and Acknowledgments Introduction The Newbigging ceramic material, listed and photographed on the enclosed disk has been assigned to the National Museums of Scotland and was catalogued using accession numbers (FD 2004.1.1 to 507. This small and fairly commonplace ceramic assemblage derives from a pottery of 19th and early 20th century date. The shards have been divided by fabric type, form and decoration into 6 folders and 58 files. The majority of the pottery was recovered during a small rescue excavation and salvage operation funded by Historic Scotland. Most of the on site work was carried out by Alison McIntyre, Alan Radley and the author over a three week period at the end of December 1987 and beginning of January 1988. While carrying out research for a paper on archaeologically derived French pottery in Scotland, I visited a number of Scottish Museums holding shard collections. To my dismay, I found that the majority were storing their ceramic material in a way that makes studying them very difficult and extremely time consuming. It was with these problems in mind, that I decided while preparing my industrial pottery for archive, to produce a number of resource disks as a means of getting all my shard evidence for Scottish east coast potteries into the public domain. These disks are not intended to be ‘publications’ in the accepted sense and should not be seen as such. They are no more than tools for future research. 2 The four hundred plus photographs on the Newbigging resource disk were taken against a one cm square background in the NMS ceramic storeroom, and are certainly not of publication standard. The files were created in Microsoft Word. Members of the NCS may be surprised to find illustrations of Stoneware ginger beer bottles along with examples of bone china on their disk, but I make no apology for this. My main interest and expertise is centred on medieval ceramics and I do not claim to be an authority on all of the material on the disk. I would therefore be pleased to have any mistakes corrected, or to have other extant examples of possible Newbigging manufacture brought to my attention. Copies of all the documents, sasines, newspapers, etc., used in compiling the history of the Newbigging Pottery along with the genealogies of the owners has been deposited with Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland. Another set (Box 15) has been deposited along with the Newbigging ceramic assemblage in the National Museums Scotland Ceramic Store, Leith Custom House. For detailed lists of this material, see disk file: 4 Adverts Sasines Publications etc. In producing this catalogue I have deliberately not produced long descriptions of what are known of as the diagnostic features - that is the small details on the moulded items such as spouts, handles, and shell edging etc, as it is generally accepted that most of the smaller potteries simply bought in master moulds as required. 3 At present, all the boxed Newbigging material and some complete examples from the Museums collection are housed in the National Museums of Scotland Ceramic Store in Leith Custom House. The majority of known marked pieces from the Newbigging Pottery are in the collections of the National Museums of Scotland, either on display in the Museum of Scotland, Chambers Street, Edinburgh (Case SP1), or in their Ceramic Store in Leith Custom House. In excess of 3000 body shards, comprising undecorated bisque and glazed white earthenware and hundreds of fragments of unmarked late stoneware were discarded by the author after the initial sort. This was mostly unstratified material, been dug up by machine and which littered the site. Acknowledgments While cataloguing the Newbigging ceramic assemblage, Sheila Forbes my colleague, friend, and a National Museums of Scotland volunteer carried out, with amazing speed, the humdrum tasks of shard marking, sticking my pottery joins, labelling and packing. For this, the tea, cake and sandwiches, I am extremely grateful. Over the years a number of other people have commented on or worked on the shards, or contributed to our knowledge of the Newbigging pottery, These include Alison McIntyre, Caroline Hunter, the late Robin Hill, Jill Turnbull, Catriona & David Maisels, Jonathan Rickard, Rodney Hampson, Dr Thomson and George Dalgleish. The publications and this catalogue would be so much less without their efforts. I am also deeply indebted to many people in the National Museums of Scotland and to the Officers and Committee Members of the Northern Ceramic Society who agreed to distribute the 4 disk. Finally I would like to thank Patrick Ashmore who was supportive and instrumental in getting Historic Scotland to fund its production. George Raymond Haggarty * asserts and gives notice of his right under section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 to be identified as the Author of the enclosed Newbigging Resource Disk. The National Museums of Scotland asserts and gives notice of their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988 to be identified as copyright holders of the illustrations contained in the enclosed Newbigging Resource Disk. *8 John Street Portobello Edinburgh Scotland EH15 2 EE: E-mail [email protected] 1 Newbigging: Agate Ware: (Box No 10) Stratified material from the excavation has the number of the Context or Feature in the top left hand corner below the National Museums of Scotland number FD 2004.1.- Agate wares were made by many potteries in Scotland although they were rarely marked, being near the bottom end of the market. The agate ware recovered from Newbigging was limited to three stratified unglazed marbles (Context 7) and almost certainly date to the first quarter of the nineteenth century. (FD 2004.1. 365) Context 7 Fabric Colours Glazed Diameter Damaged Illus. Marbles Brown & white No 20mm No 290 Two complete marbles, and one fragment of unglazed Agate Ware marbles. The clay is red and white, and the marbles are between 18 and 20 mm. in diameter. (FD 2004.1. 366) Context 7 Fabric Colours Glazed Diameter Damaged Illus. Marbles Brown & white No 18mm No 290 (FD 2004.1. 367) Context 7 Fabric Colours Glazed Diameter Damaged Illus. Marbles Brown & white No 20mm? Yes 290 1 Newbigging: Black Basalt: (BOX No 9) Bisque shards are shown as B, glazed shards as G, and complete profiles as P: Catalogue entries marked in red have been illustrated below the catalogue entries and have associated text. Any illustrations of complete vessels or shards used for comparative purposes have been given identifiable letters starting with (A). Moulded decoration is given as (MO), Rouletted as (R) and Engine-Turned as (ET). Stratified material from the excavation has the number of the Context, or Feature, in the top left hand corner under the National Museum of Scotland number FD 2004. 1. - Close ups of all the rouletting used at Newbigging can be seen in Folder, Decorated Wares, and File, Rouletted & Engine-Turned. Scottish ceramics literature is replete with references to back basalt wares. However, all the marked examples, and most of the material which I have seen from Scottish production sites, are actually examples of later black glazed wares similar in style to those from Newbigging. But there is a large fragment (now missing) of a black basalt, moulded, London style teapot, which was recovered by the author and Bill Lindsay during development work at Portobello. By far the best archaeological evidence for the production of black basalt in Scotland is seen in the shards catalogued below. A base shard from a black basalt vessel was found by Mr David Harvey while walking his dog in a field near to the Newbigging Pottery site. This important fragment has REID, presumably for William Reid, impressed on the underside, and has been donated to the National Museums of Scotland, Acc No (K.2004.118). See (Illus I, J & K). (FD 2004.1.270) Context 7 Shards Decoration Fabric Rim dia Base dia Height Illus Coffee pot 10. B (R) No 4 & 24 Black c. 90mm ? ? 199 Ten shards, of which nine conjoin to form a large fragment of a thrown black basalt coffee pot cover. The cover is 90mm diameter, and is decorated with two horizontal spaced bands of rouletting (No 4). between these is a broad area of rouletting (No 24). A small steam hole is beside the scar of the missing knop. 2 (FD 2004.1.271) Context 7 Shards Decoration Fabric Rim dia Base dia Height Illus Teapot 1. B (MO) Black ? ? ? 200 One black basalt shard, decorated with a moulded diamond pattern, is possibly from the flared neck of a teapot. Illus I, J & K, Museums of Scotland: Acc No FD 2004. 19. A high fired, moulded, Black Basalt basal angle shard from a pedestal base is decorated with a band of stylised acanthus leaves and beading. This shard was recovered by Mr. David Harvey while walking his dog in a field near the Newbigging site. Finished on a lathe, the word REID is impressed on the base. The shard has been donated to the National Museums of Scotland and packed in (Box 9) with the other shards of Newbigging Black Basalt: 1 Newbigging: Black Glazed Wares: (BOX No 9) Bisque shards are shown as B, glazed shards as G and complete profiles as P: Catalogue entries marked in red are illustrated below the catalogue entries, and have associated text. Illustrations of complete vessels used for comparative purposes have been given identifiable letters starting with A. Moulded decoration is MO, Rouletted is R, and Engine-Turned is ET. Close ups of the rouletting used can be seen in Folder, Decorated Wares and File, Rouletted & Engine-Turned.

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