It was a common practice to dig a rubbish trench and dispose of small household waste. We have found buckets and buckets of broken glass from bottles to windows and oodles of china and clay fragments and even a penny token from before currency.
In the post hole this week we have found a clay pipe bowl and with the best internet trawling I can date it to around 1840-1870? which fits the settlement date of this area. These pipes were quite common everyday items and made from kaolin clay, the same used in fine china for it's fineness and whiteness.
I've located another photo of one here and they have called it a comedy/tragedy pipe. It has a distinct happy face one way and when turned upside down it has a tragic, sad bearing. The features put me in mind of the Dickensian characters illustrated at that time. Not worth much but an exciting find non the less.
That is a wonderful find, Tanya. How lovely to find pieces of history and to find out about their stories. Meg:)
ReplyDeleteI love that. I'd never heard of one with faces on before. Tanya, have you thought of doing something like a rough mosaic, in or on a wall for instance, with some of your glass and china fragments?
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a girl I used to collect china fragments from the fields at the back of our house and display them on a piece of cement hard standing left over from a demolished farm building. I called it my museum, lol. I would love to find stuff like that again. :)
Wow Tanya, what a great find! And to know the story behind it too, that's fantastic!
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