Description:

Fabric: Very hard, reddish purple to purple brown, sometimes with white clay inclusions. In Virginia, the color variations of reddish purple to purple brown appear on similar vessels, which are often found together in the same sites. On sites with both English and French material, Midlands Purple can be difficult to distinguish from Normandy stoneware, which also produced wide-mouthed jars in a purple brown fabric (Hurst et al. 1986:100-101). One Midlands Purple variant found in Virginia, with a context of about 1635 to 1645 (site 44JC802), has a red orange fabric with iron-rich inclusions, while the body was covered with a slip firing glossy reddish purple. Midlands Purple is considered essentially the same fabric as Late Medieval orange ware, with the only difference between the two types being the intensity of firing (Ford 1995:35). Midlands Purple is technically classed as an earthenware due to the maturing temperature of the clay, but has most of the characteristics of a stoneware. (picture)

Glaze: The only glaze is inside the base, where a thick black coating usually reaches partway up the walls. The black color may be caused by reaction between the lead-glaze and the iron-rich body, rather than additives in the glaze (Barker 1986:54). The vessel from site 44JC802 also has this black lead-glaze, which is applied over an iron oxide red slip, a technique sometimes found on late 17th and early 18th-century blackware vessels (Barker 1986:62).

Form: The only form found in Virginia is the butter pot, a cylinder about 7 inches in diameter and standing about 12 to 15 inches high. The form constricts slightly at the neck, then rises to an upright, collared rim. Inside, the rim usually has a slight ledge that would support a lid (Outlaw 1990:107). Ceramic lids are not known for these vessels, and presumably would have been wood. Handles, frequently found in England, are not recorded from Virginia. The variant from 44JC802 is 7 inches wide and just under 10 inches tall, with a flanged rim over a slightly constricted neck.

In Virginia, the name "Midlands Purple" is almost exclusively used for the butter pots commonly found on sites in the first half of the 17th century. In England, "Midlands Purple" covers a broad category including forms such as pitchers, slipware dishes, bowls, skillets, crucibles and mortars (Ford 1995:35). The ware appeared in the late-14th or early-15th century and continued into the 18th century (Ford 1995:35).

The exact point of origin for the Virginia butter pots is not known, although they are probably from the general vicinity of Northern Staffordshire and Southern Lancashire. Abundant deposits of coal and iron-rich coal measure clays under this broad area have resulted in a number of similar wares which are difficult to tie to specific kilns. For example, a close relation to these pots is 18th-century "Buckley" ware often attributed to Northern Wales, but now known to have also come from Southern Lancashire kilns such as Prescot, in Liverpool.

In England, a parallel for the Virginia butter pot fabric has been noted from Woodbank St. in Burslem, Staffordshire. The Woodbank St. pot has a mug rim scar on the base; during firing butter pots sometimes doubled as saggars for smaller vessels, particularly Cistercian wares (Barker 1986:60, Ford 1995:37). Examples paralleling Virginia finds have also been excavated from the Southern Lancashire kilns in Prescot and Newton.

Pottery from this region does not commonly appear on pre-1650 Virginia sites. In this case, the vessels almost certainly arrived in the New World as incidental packaging for butter. In 1686, Robert Plot mentioned the large dairies of the Moorlands sending butter to Staffordshire's Uttoxeter market, where it was bought by London factors (Celoria and Kelly 1974:5). Plot added: "The butter they buy by the Pot, of a long cylindrical form, made at Burslem in this County of a certain size, so as not to weigh above six pounds at most, yet to contain at least 14. pounds of butter..." (Celoria and Kelly 1974:5).

Plot's six-pound pot with 14 pounds of butter was specified by English statute of 1662, which described the product as "one of the principal commodities of the kingdom..." (Egan 1992:97). This butter may have been preserved by salting, a process in which a scalded container was filled in layers, each layer being covered with salt after pounding to remove air, which could cause spoiling (Anderson 1971:127). A polished bone scoop, used for pulling samples from butter and cheese to test for rancidity, is among the early finds from James Fort.

Midlands Purple butter pots are frequently found in Virginia from the beginning of the colony until about the 1640s, although a find from Gloucester County, Virginia dates to the later century (Brown and Harpole 1997:104). The form continued to be made in the Midlands until about 1730 (Egan 1992:97), but their general disappearance from Virginia around mid-century almost certainly reflects the colony's growing stability.

Sources
Barker, David (1986) North Staffordshire Post-Medieval Ceramics - A Type Series. Staffordshire Archaeological Studies, Museum Archaeological Society Report, New Series No. 3. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.

Brown, David A., and Thane H. Harpole (1997) The Gloucester Frontier: An Archaeological Investigation of a Mid-Seventeenth-Century Domestic Farmstead (44GL407), Gloucester County, Virginia. Ms on file, Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg.

Celoria, F.S.C., and Kelly, J.H. (1974) A post-medieval pottery site with a kiln base found off Albion Square, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, City of Stoke-on-Trent Museum Archaeological Society Report 4. Stoke-on-Trent City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.

Edwards, Andrew C. et al. (1989) Hampton University Archaeological Project: A Report on the Findings. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg.

Edwards, Andrew C. et al. (1987) Archaeology at Port Anne. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg.

Egan, Geoff (1992) Marks on butterpots. In Everyday and Exotic Pottery from Europe: Studies in honour of John G. Hurst, edited by David Gaimster and Mark Redknap, pp.97-100. Oxbow Books, Oxford.

Ellis, Peter (ed.) 1993 Beeston Castle, Chesire: a report on the excavations 1968-85 by Laurence Keen and Peter Hough, Archaeological Report No. 23. English Heritage, London.

Ford, Deborah A. (1995) Medieval Pottery in Staffordshire, AD800-1600: A Review, Staffordshire Archaeological Studies No. 7, 1995. City Museum & Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent.

Kiser, Robert Taft (1992) Ceramics, in Jordan's Journey: A Preliminary Report on Archaeology at Site 44PG302, Prince George County, Virginia 1990-1991, edited by L. Daniel Mouer and Douglas C. McLearen, pp.113-137. Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond.

Noake, Penny (1993) The post-medieval pottery, in Beeston Castle, Cheshire: a report on the excavations 1968-85 by Laurence Keen and Peter Hough. , Archaeological Report No. 23. English Heritage, London.

Outlaw, Alain Charles (1990) Governor's Land: Archaeology of Early Seventeenth-Century Virginia Settlements. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville.

Sites
Chancellor's Point, Maryland
College Landing 44WB49 [Edwards et al. 1987]
Flowerdew :44PG68; c. 1617-1640; 44PG79; c. 1620-1640; 44PG82; c. 1620-1640
Gloucester 44GL407 [Brown and Harpole 1997]
Hampton 44HT55; [Edwards et al. 1989]
Jamestown, National Park Service
Jordan/Ferrar 44PG302; c. 1620-1635
Jordan's Journey 44PG300; c. 1620-1640
The Maine ; ca. 1618-1625 [Outlaw 1990]
Martin's Hundred: Site H, c.1619-1622; Site C, c. 1620-1622; Site A, c. 1622-1645


Prepared by Taft Kiser