7 - TWO-HANDLED TYG: probably Henry Ifield, Wrotham, Kent, 1668

Summary

Reddish-brown earthenware decorated with white clay under yellowish lead glaze. Height 14.5 cm. C.120–1928.

Drinking cups with more than one handle were the great speciality of Wrotham potters in the seventeenth century and have been described as tygs by collectors since the nineteenth century. They were made of red or brown clay decorated in white with slip-trailing, prunts and heraldic motifs on applied pads of clay, which appear yellow under the lead glaze. Many of them bear dates and the potter's initials, sometimes accompanied by one or two other sets of initials, presumably those of their owners. Twisted two-colour edges and white bun-shaped finials were features of the double-loop handles, usually three or four, but on this example only two.

Searches of the Wrotham parish registers, made between 1906 and 1912 for Dr J.W.L. Glaisher, revealed the names of several persons whose initials coincide with those found repeatedly on Wrotham slipware, and who were therefore probably potters. HI is known from dated tygs and jugs bearing his initials to have been working between about 1652 and 1669. He was probably the Henry Ifield baptised in 1633, listed in the Hearth Tax Rolls of 1663–4 and buried on 18 October 1673.