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Lossenham Pottery Project 2024 I - more clays, new kiln

 

Encouraged by the successes (and informed by the failures) of the initial Lossenham Pottery Project we returned in 2024 with plans to explore the landscape of Lossenham farm for the different clays it might yield, use these to make a range of contemporary pots responding to the landscape and history, experiment with clay preparation and making techniques for medieval pots and tiles to understand better how medieval potters might have worked, and to build and fire a new and more effective earth kiln. As note previously, a more detailed visual record of this work can be found here.

 

The first part of the 2024 project consisted of sampling, preparing and testing a range of clays from different parts of the landscape across the farm. Although all on the Wadhust clay deposits, the varied topography from ridge to floodplain, has resulted in considerable variation in the nature of clays on the site. We ended up with 16 or so different clay samples, strikingly varied in unfired colour and variable in both workabiity and in qualities when fired (in an electric test kiln). We also experimented with using the clays to make different coloured slips (liquid clay applied for decoration), and with simple lead, and non-lead based glazes which might mature at the sorts of low temperature earthenware firing we were anticipating from the type of kiln we were planning to build. Despite the stunning variation in the colours of the clays before firing, the high iron content of almost all of them meant that the fired results were largely subtle variations of terracotta! 

Test pieces (unfired) from a range of Lossenham clays

 

However, in one location we found a clay, which at least in patches is more or less iron free, and fires to a pure white. This was an exciting discovery as subsequent experiment proved this clay could be used to make a white slip for the decoration of inlaid tiles, and pots, very similar to examples from the medieval pottery and tile remains in Rye Museum, and from the priory excavation.

White clay slip being used to inlay decoration on a replica medieval tile

 

The modest quantities of clay needed for the previous stage of the project had been prepared by drying, slaking, sieving and then dewatering the dug clay to remove unwanted stones, grit, plant material etc. However, while this is fine for getting small samples of clay to test, it is not a practical means for producing large quantities of clay; not to mention the fact that the fine-meshed metal sieves we were using would not have been available to a medieval potter. Instead he, or she, had two choices, either to use clay directly from the ground, picking out the worst of the stones and other larger inclusions by hand, or by levigation - separation using suspension in water. The former is the most time and effort efficient method if deposits of clay can be found with few, and larger, inclusions. Where the stones and grit are more abundant, and smaller, hand picking becomes impossible and the best approach is to break the clay down into a suspension in a larger volume of water, then let the larger particles settle out and pour off the fine clay remaining in suspension. This then has to be dewatered until the clay is workable. We used a mixture of both approaches, depending on the nature of the clay, and ended up with bulk samples of six of the different clays from our initial sample (about 70-80 kg of each). 

Dewatered clay in the settling tank, ready to be removed.

 

From these different clays we experimented with making both replica medieval pottery (me), and contemporary pieces (Russell), the former with a view to understanding and testing the methods which might have been employed by medieval potters, and the latter as part of the arts residency at Lossenham, exploring the relationships between the landscape, materials, and history, of the site. 

Making the body of a medieval style jug

 

All the medieval pottery was thrown on a treadle wheel - a weighted flywheel powered by a foot operated lever (treadle), very much like what has become known as a 'Leach wheel'. Whilst this type of wheel did not come into use until well after the medieval period, by using a combination of human power and momentum, it nonetheless provides some of the same making constraints and characteristics as potters using the wheels of the medieval period (of which more elsewhere) would have experienced. 

Replica medieval pots drying prior to glazing and firing

 

Having found a source of white clay we were also able to start making inlaid tiles based on the fragments of those emerging from the priory excavations, using these both as a source of design and also to provide insight into how they were made. The white clay slip and several of our bulk clay bodies proved compatible in terms of shrinkage and, using a woodblock stamp carved from a piece of seasoned oak from the farm, we were able to start experimenting with different methods of moulding inlaying and firing the tiles. 

An early test of a decorated tile (fired in the electric kiln)

 

Having a small electric kiln to test clays and glazes in made experimentation much easier, but we also needed to build the earth kiln with which to fire the majority of the work. This was an experiment in itself ... (see part II)