❄️Mudlark’s Advent, day 8❄️
Oh, hello, what’s this? A deliciously crumbly, fruity chocolate tiffin, topped with Bakewell icing? No. It’s a lovely, fat chunk of Staffordshire combed slipware, dating from somewhere between 1690-1830.
Combed slipware, an earthenware ceramic decorated in slip, fired, usually, with clear glaze to the patterned side, was popular between 1690 and 1830. While production began in Staffordshire, combed slipware ceramics were also produced in potteries across the Midlands, Yorkshire and Bristol.
Combed slipware has an uncanny likeness to delicious party biscuits and Bakewell tarts, achieved by ‘combing’ through applied coloured slip (wet clay), often finished off at the edges with a ‘crimped’ or ‘coggled’ pie crust effect.
I think this fragment was possibly part of a round edged, rectangular meat plate, as it is so chunky and heavy. Intact loaf or baking dishes, cups and pots are on display at the Victoria & Albert museum, Museum of London and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
