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The medieval potter’s wheel goes on the road

 

 

A Roman or medieval potter’s wheel, when built from a cartwheel, as ours is, probably had the shaft supporting the wheel set directly into the workshop floor. Such wheels were not designed to be moved around. However, as ours has the shaft in a wooden frame which is (fairly!) portable, it can go touring! Its first outing was to Rye Castle Museum, where I did a day of demonstrations for museum members followed by a weekend of demonstrations when the museum was open to the public.The idea was to show how medieval potters would have made pots, what sort of pots they made, and to highlight some of the methods required to make the sort of pots found in the excavations of the medieval pottery kilns at Rye, examples of which visitors can see in the museum’s collection.

 

 

The collection also has some decorated floor tiles made at Rye during the medieval period and so, in addition to the pottery, I demonstrated the possible tools and techniques for making such floor tiles using local clays.

 

 

On the members’ day there was the opportunity to hear more about the pots on display in the museum from Susannah Mayor (Senior Collections Officer with the National Trust at Smallhythe Place) and to examine some of them out of their display cabinets, as well as replica pots fired the replica medieval kiln made during the 2024 phase of the Lossenham Pottery Project.

 

 

On all three days there were showings of a film by Kit Warren (www.kitwarren.co.uk) about that part of the pottery project. The film can now be viewed online.

 

Despite the event being during one of the many heatwaves of this very hot summer, the Museum’s entrance passageway afforded enough shade to keep audience and potter from overheating too much and a steady flow of visitors saw the medieval wheel in action or tiles being made. It was great to meet people, answer questions, and talk about the work.

 

Thanks to everyone who came along, and to Penny Bruce and the other museum staff and volunteers who made it all possible. We hope seeing the wheel in action brought to life, at least a little, the beautiful medieval pots behind glass in the museum.

 

If anyone is interested in going into a bit more depth about the making of medieval decorated tiles, I should be back at the museum demonstrating tile making as part of the Arts History Festival: Making and Materials on the 10th and 11th of October 2026.

 

Notes

• Photos: Kit Warren 

• The glove in a couple of the images is nothing to do with medieval potting techniques - just protecting the dressing on a cut!