Pottery from 2024 excavations at Eddlewood Castle, South Lanarkshire
Derek Hall
Introduction
This small assemblage of 7 sherds of medieval pottery was examined by eye and x10 hand lens and assigned to a recognised fabric name where possible.
Scottish Redware
There are three bodysherds in this fabric from splash glazed jugs from Contexts 2 and 3 in Test Pit 3 (FN 6, 8 and 9. Extensive chemical sourcing sponsored by Historic Scotland in the 1990’s/2000’s suggested that there were production centres for this fabric in all the major Scottish river valleys were there was a usable clay resource between the 13th and 15th centuries (Haggarty, Hall and Chenery 2011).
Scottish Post Medieval Oxidised and Reduced Wares
First identified from excavations at Stirling Castle in the 1980’s vessels in Scottish Post Medieval Oxidised and Reduced Wares (also known as Throsk-Type Wares) date from the 16th/17th centuries until the advent of industrial whitewares in the 19th century, are mass produced and represent a development in firing technology from the earlier Scottish Medieval Redwares described above (Haggarty 1980; Caldwell and Dean 1992; Harrison 2002). There are 4 sherds from the Reduced version of this fabric from Context 2 in Test Pit 3 (FN 3, 4, 5 and 7).
Discussion and Conclusions
All of the pottery examined by the author from the 2024 excavation season is of Scottish manufacture. Production and distribution of these fabrics is less well understood in the West of Scotland, and this small assemblage is a useful addition to the study. At some future point there would be some benefit in chemically sourcing some of the fabrics to confirm their provenance.
References
Caldwell, D H and Dean, V E 1992 ‘The pottery industry at Throsk, Stirlingshire, in the 17th and early 18th century’ Post Medieval Archaeol 26, 1–46.
Haggarty, G 1980 ‘The Pottery’ in Ewart, G ‘Excavations at Stirling Castle 1977-78’ Post Medieval Archaeol 23, 23-51
Haggarty, G R, Hall, D W and Chenery, S 2011 Sourcing Scottish Redwares Medieval Pottery Research Group Occasional Paper Number 5.
Harrison, J G 2002 ‘The Pottery at Throsk, Stirlingshire c 1600–c 1800: context, links and survival’ Proc Soc Antiq Scot (132), 459-473