The Clay Industries Including the Fictile and Ceramic Arts on the Banks of the Severn

The Borough of Wenlock comprises places not only rich in historic interest but important also as centres of manufacturing industry; and none more so than those grouped within a mile or two of the Iron-bridge, itself a work of world-wide fame.  “Broseley Pipes” and “Broseley Bricks,”—the latter including all similar productions emanating from Coalbrookdale, the Woodlands, Lady-Wood, Coleford, &c.—possess acknowledged merits which create for them a constant demand, whilst in higher branches of the art, where similar natural and other clays are used, Messrs. Maw, Craven, Dunnill, and Co., and Bathurst, find a still more extensive market for their goods.

From time immemorial the merits of these clays seem to have been known and recognised; if not from Early British, at any rate from the period when the armies of imperial Rome penetrated the Valley of the Severn, through intermediate ages, these beds of clay which give employment to thousands seem to have been used for some purpose or other, either for articles of ornament or of use.  At Caersws, near Llandinam, on the left bank of the Severn, we have seen Roman bricks apparently with the initials of the workmen’s names upon them; whilst of pottery, cart loads have been found there and at Wroxeter, including a number of jars, bottles, urns, lamps, vases, &c., with hunting and other subjects.  Some of the mortars, colanders, dishes, and similar kitchen utensils, are of coarse white clay, similar to that now used at Broseley.  It is therefore evident from modern excavations that fifteen hundred years ago the value of these clays was known to the brick-makers and potters introduced by that enterprising people.  Specimens of Norman and of later periods are rare, but certain evidences concur to make it clear that not only fifteen hundred years ago was the worth of these clays established, but that from that period to the present they have been used in one way or another.