Description:
Lead-glazed, earthenware watering pot. Bulbous body with tapering neck, partially covered top, applied handle, crimped base, and short spout with rose-shaped head. The swelling body with a pierced domed spout at the front and a loop handle at the back, the cylindrical neck with a partially hooded rim, thumb-pressed around the edge to echo the thumb-pressed footrim, the russet-colored clay with a ‘bib’ of brown glaze.
The pot is accompanied by a paper card, which is inscribed: "Watering Pot / Found in Bishopsgate / Street London, 1872. / Date - 17th Century." This early English watering pot may have served two functions. First, gardeners undoubtedly used the pots for watering garden beds. Second, homeowners may have utilized the pots for maintaining clean domestic interiors. It was common for the floors of early English households to be covered in rush or straw, which slowly disintegrated into dust. Watering pots may have been used to sprinkle water onto floors, thereby preventing the dust from becoming airborne and drifting throughout the room. Early English watering pots also took a second form, which lacked a spout entirely. These pots featured a narrow neck, bulbous body, and a large base, which was punctured with holes. By placing the thumb over the hole at the top of the pot, one could control the release of the water coming out through the holes at the bottom. Englishman Thomas Hill recorded the form of these wares in his book The Gardners Labyrinth in 1577: "The common watering potte for the Garden beddes with us, hath a narrow necke, bigge belly, somewhat large bottome, and full of little holes, with a proper hole formed on the head, to take in the water, whiche filled full, and the thombe layde on the hole to keepe in the aire, may on such wise be carried in handsome manner... " Watering pots, with and without spouts, have been excavated in London at garden sites dating to the medieval period. In fact, according to an inscription on the underside of the current example, along with a written note, this pot was found in Bishopsgate Street, London in 1872. This utility form has been in use since the middle ages. Several of these watering pots have been found in London and it is thought that they were made locally in the city (Museum of London).
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=HD+2018.48.8 |
