6 - JUG: probably Harlow, Essex, c. 1630–60

Summary

Red earthenware with white slip-trailed decoration under yellowish lead glaze. Height 28.4 cm. Glaisher Catalogue 40–1928.

The development of the New Town at Harlow in Essex during the 1950s led to the discovery of kiln sites and great quantities of sherds at Latton Street and Potter Street in the parish of Latton. Some sherds matched mid-seventeenth-century pottery known as Metropolitan Slipware because much of it had been found in the City of London. Its place of manufacture had previously been uncertain, but can now be identified as the Harlow area, which was conveniently situated on the road from Newmarket to London.

The slip-trailed motifs on this jug correspond to sherds from Potter Street, but it differs from many complete vessels of this type in lacking a pious inscription round its body or neck. A smaller jug and a bowl in the Museum's collection bear the exhortations ‘REMEMBER GOD’ and ‘FAST AND PRAY’. Such inscriptions are an indication of the fervent religious sentiments prevalent in England during the mid-seventeenth century, and a reminder of the ever-present threat of death from plague and other causes in that period.