Blue & White glass materializing in UK fields

[Carlos Allende]

    I live in the South West of England. For as long as I can remember, walking across fields, y’know,  out for a walk with the dog, or just wondering aimlessly like a Samuel Beckett-style tramp, I’ve found these tiny fragments of blue-and-white oriental ceramic, ranging in size from fingernail-size to four inches, but typically about an inch-and-a-bit.  I frequently found them as kid in the early 80’s, and they’ve appeared thick-and-fast ever since then (I guess as the tractors have churned them up each time they’ve ploughed). I’ve found them in Malmesbury, I’ve found them in the hills of Stroud, I’ve found them near Bristol. What are they? They were maybe plates or pots at one time, a century or so ago, but… how did they come to be so widely dispersed in the middle of nowhere, in agricultural land, en masse?  Check it out on Google. It’s a genuine mystery.

    For years,  my theory was that they were just potato / carrot / lettuce-collecting vessels that farm workers had accidentally left in the fields, thereafter getting smashed. Or maybe oldern-times farmers  had needed to get their fertilizer from a wholesaler that had used oriental porcelain to convey the muck.

   It was only recently that I was in a pub and I heard a much more interesting theory from a local Dale Gribble-type. He looked at the tiny fragment I was holding and I told him my theory.

   “Really?”, incredulous. “Poor deluded fool, do you really think those ornate painted patterns could have survived decade after decade of being exposed to the elements, and  getting churned around through the teeth of ploughs and cultivators? Open your eyes! Those bits of ceramic are SUPERNATURAL!”

   He proceeded to tell me about Caer Bladon, the first King of England, and how he was a party to the first ever state visit of Chinese royalty. The Chinese Emperor stayed at his castle for a few days, but then at the end of his visit, said, ‘Your Highness, ye have a beautiful  land, but your people? I found them conceited. The land itself is fine. The infrastructure? Fine. But the people …they’re just a little conceited’.

    And Caer Bladon said, “What can I do?”

   And The Emperor said, “Don’t worry. Leave it to me. I can get my best mandarin to make you a MIGHTY PORCELAIN SNAKE that will creep beside the beds of your subjects and EAT the conceit from their minds as they sleep. Not _all_ the conceit, just a healthy amount, say, 49 percent”.

   And the plan went just fine …until the mighty porcelain snake went AWOL, engorged on lazy political concepts. Rampaging through the countryside, creating valleys where previously the land was flat, twisting round geological outcrops until weird new landmasses were created (Silbury Hill). Caer Bladon had no option but to undertake an EPIC BATTLE with the ceramic snake, battling day-and-night through county after county, lopping off sections of the beast with Excalibur until nought remained, the conceit-blood re-integrating into the minds of every man, woman and child in such a way that the problem was even worse than b4.  

   Me? I’m going to keep on collecting the bits ceramic until I can Poundland-superglue the whole thing back together.

[Carlos Allende]

Just now, seanjo said:

Take them to your local museum they might be able to identify them for you, do you know the history of that place? did the Romans ever have a fort or dwelling there?

Yeah, we had Romans all over Wiltshire. I think other people have already tried the scholarly route, tho. According to the internet, it's a mystery plenty of people know but no-one has an answer for.

[justin3651]

Maybe an old Roman villa or 2 lies under those fields? I'd definitely try talking to local archaeologists about it. It might be nothing of interest or it could be something huge. You never know, that's part of what makes archaeology so fascinating and exciting.

[Essan]

Never heard that story before, but like the idea of the Chinese Emperor visiting England in pre-Roman times   Did you known my (very distant) ancestor had his head buried under Tower Hill in London?

Seriously, they look like they could be Roman.  No value, but indicative of Roman presence in the area so worth mentioning to your local museum.   There were loads of Roman villas in the Cotswolds - in fact, it was to Rome what it is to London today: a place for the rich to settle in,  and then moan about the crowing cocks and lack of hourly chariots into the city .....

[Black Monk]

It's not Roman. It looks like 18th century English willow pattern to me.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Black Monk

[hetrodoxly]

Victorian (earlier and later) refuse, it could be ploughed out of a dump but more likely spread on the fields by night soil men, before flushing toilets existed they collected poo the contents of middens which contained rubbish and spread on the fields as fertilizer, dump diggers, people who's hobby is digging Victorian rubbish dumps find this blue willow pattern china by the ton, it lasts in the ground for thousands of years.

[acute]

4 minutes ago, Black Monk said:

It's not Roman. It looks like 18th century English willow pattern to me.

Yep! Standard issue Staffordshire pottery.

[Carlos Allende]

9 minutes ago, hetrodoxly said:

Victorian (earlier and later) refuse, it could be ploughed out of a dump but more likely spread on the fields by night soil men, before flushing toilets existed they collected poo the contents of middens which contained rubbish and spread on the fields as fertilizer, dump diggers, people who's hobby is digging Victorian rubbish dumps find this blue willow pattern china by the ton, it lasts in the ground for thousands of years.

I guess that explains it. Probably I shouldn't have spent all these years sucking bits for good luck.

[danydandan]

9 minutes ago, Carlos Allende said:

I guess that explains it. Probably I shouldn't have spent all these years sucking bits for good luck.

Sucking bits is bad. 

But on a serious note: If they have been effectively overturned through farming, would that make the site a good archeological site for a dig? There might be plenty more interesting artifacts buried deeper, wouldn't there?

Edited October 28, 2018 by danydandan

[Carlos Allende]

9 minutes ago, danydandan said:

But on a serious note: If they have been effectively overturned through farming, would that make the site a good archeological site for a dig? There might be plenty more interesting artifacts buried deeper, wouldn't there?

I wouldn't know about that. I just think it's cool because the blue-and-white bits are _everywhere._ It's like archeology for lazy boys. Certainly, where I've found bits in Stroud, the whole town is full of academics, so they're either very unimpressed or too spooked to talk about it.

[danydandan]

28 minutes ago, Carlos Allende said:

I wouldn't know about that. I just think it's cool because the blue-and-white bits are _everywhere._ It's like archeology for lazy boys. Certainly, where I've found bits in Stroud, the whole town is full of academics, so they're either very unimpressed or too spooked to talk about it.

My dad was a contractor, he worked in some interesting sites. Mostly for stud farms and one off houses in Kildare or Meath.

He discovered a famine grave, loads and loads of Roman, Viking and others pottery. Our shed at home has loads of pottery, 300 year old cooper tools, a 200-400 year old butter churner. That was all discovered just digging. 

Get your bloody shovel out man. Youd never know what youll find.

The famine grave was a mass grave used during The Great Famine contained about 500 bodies, that still gives him nightmares I think.

Edited October 28, 2018 by danydandan
Bloody auto correct!!???

[Piney]

1 hour ago, Carlos Allende said:

   Me? I’m going to keep on collecting the bits ceramic until I can Poundland-superglue the whole thing back together.

 

18th and 19th Century cheap Chinese pottery. Check around and see if there was a pub or inn in the vicinity.   

 

[+joc]

2 hours ago, Piney said:

18th and 19th Century cheap Chinese pottery. Check around and see if there was a pub or inn in the vicinity.   

 

they are from aliens!    Ok ...well...Chinese pottery is alien to fields of Europe right?   Supernatural pottery is the thing man...pffft...don't you know anything?

[acute]

After closer inspection of the photograph, I have formed the opinion that it's actually JupiterWare.

FROM SPACE!!!

[Piney]

23 minutes ago, joc said:

they are from aliens!    Ok ...well...Chinese pottery is alien to fields of Europe right?   Supernatural pottery is the thing man...pffft...don't you know anything?

It was a bloody pub or estate dump. You find them on the East Coast of the US around Colonial settlements. 

[Essan]

Just had a proper look at the pics and rather embarassed I suggested it could be Roman.  That's wine for you! 

As noted above, probably 19th or early 20th century willow pattern.

As an aside, as a kid I remember digging around in what we called "the dump" - a big mound of earth on the edge of a playing field on the edge of a small housing estate by one of HM's prisons.   The location had been part of a WW2 airfield.   Found a few shards of pottery there, dating to the 1940s, which was impressive as an 8 year old.

[hetrodoxly]

The cart would then be taken off to the Nightman's yard where it was mixed with other rubbish that the Nightmen and other scavengers had collected including ashes, dust, dung, and rotting vegetables. There it would be mixed before it was sold to farmers as manure for the fields.

Night-Soil for Manure
A large quantity of NIGHT SOIL to be SOLD, near the Regent's Canal Basin, in the City-road, convenient for land or water carriage. Particulars may be known on application to Mr. J. Clarke, 78, Goswell-street; where also may be had, the Compressed Manures, one hogshead of which is sufficient to dress an Acre of Land.
Advertisement in the Morning Post, Tuesday 25 November 1823, on the British Newspaper Archive

http://www.historyhouse.co.uk/articles/nightman.html

[Piney]

2 hours ago, Essan said:

As an aside, as a kid I remember digging around in what we called "the dump" - a big mound of earth on the edge of a playing field on the edge of a small housing estate by one of HM's prisons.   The location had been part of a WW2 airfield.   Found a few shards of pottery there, dating to the 1940s, which was impressive as an 8 year old.

I found a Romano-British bronze ring walking a trail by the Wall. Damn things are so common in Yorkshire they're only worth a few quid. I still wear it on a chain sometimes. 

[kmt_sesh]

They're definitely pretty, but I would pay no mind to the nutcase who ascribes the supernatural to them. That's blatant nonsense, of course. Years ago I was excavating the site of a long-gone homestead in a wooded site in northern Minnesota. The property owner wished to know more about his land's history. I found quite a lot of shards very much like the ones in your picture, which were common among the nineteenth and early twentieth century homesteads in Minnesota. Looking at the site today you'd never guess anything had been there, but while searching, my friend and I came across what was clearly an old dump site on the property. When a jug or plate or other vessel was broken, it went into the dump pit. We even unearthed mechanical debris from a small sawmill that used to be there.

Do keep looking. You never know what fun and interesting things you'll find. But dispense with silly "otherworldly" explanations and stick to reality. Research the history of that property and learn what occupations and people used to be there. 

[Piney]

7 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

Do keep looking. You never know what fun and interesting things you'll find. But dispense with silly "otherworldly" explanations and stick to reality. Research the history of that property and learn what occupations and people used to be there. 

My family farm on the Quaker side was in my family since 1735 and before that it was a Swedish trading post in the 1630s to 70s. I had a whole room dedicated to the artifacts I found.

[kmt_sesh]

2 minutes ago, Piney said:

My family farm on the Quaker side was in my family since 1735 and before that it was a Swedish trading post in the 1630s to 70s. I had a whole room dedicated to the artifacts I found.

I like that idea. Such artifacts are so interesting, especially if you can somehow connect them with your own family's history. Much more interesting than attributing them to supernatural tales. Those bits and pieces from history come together to tell the story of real people who lived real lives. One thing I learned, for example, was not only the names of the different people who had lived on that old homestead, but the fact that one of them passed away in the log cabin after a hunting accident.

[Piney]

1 minute ago, kmt_sesh said:

but the fact that one of them passed away in the log cabin after a hunting accident.

I sawed this big burl in the crotch of a bull pine when I was a teen we were "limited logging" the forest. There was a "trap gun" mechanism inside. I checked the area later and found the cabin site. Some woodjin had set a trap gun to guard his door and never came home......or the trap gun got him.

[kmt_sesh]

9 minutes ago, Piney said:

I sawed this big burl in the crotch of a bull pine when I was a teen we were "limited logging" the forest. There was a "trap gun" mechanism inside. I checked the area later and found the cabin site. Some woodjin had set a trap gun to guard his door and never came home......or the trap gun got him.

Gees, what a grisly thought. You found the site of the cabin. Did you find a skeleton, too? 

[Piney]

23 minutes ago, kmt_sesh said:

 Did you find a skeleton, too? 

Skeletons don't last long in the Pine Barrens.  Rodents and acidic soil. 

[Oniomancer]

I find bits of pottery and glass like that all the time in the fields and washed out along the the streams. Got a few boxes worth. Those are definitely 19th century transferware. I think I even have a match for that scenic one in the middle with the bit of fencing on it.