(also known as Amatt’s Pottery)
Crews Hole, St George.
Summary of operating dates and proprietors
| c1819-1827 | Anthony Amatt. |
The pottery closed.
Anthony Amatt was born in Wirksworth in Derbyshire and had allegedly worked as a china enameller at the Cockpit Hill Pottery in Derby. In Bristol, possibly from 1798, he worked as a worsted and cotton manufacturer until 1818 when he advertised his factory for sale.
It was around this time that he established a pottery on the south bank of the River Avon at Crews Hole. He is certainly recorded as being in Crews Hole in the St George rate book for 1819.
In September 1827, at the age of 66, he advertised his pottery for sale in the Bristol Mercury: Lot 1 was an excellent newly-built dwelling house, comprising a kitchen, arched cellar, larder, wash-house, dining room, with a verandah fronting the River Avon, a parlour behind, china pantry, three good bedrooms and two attics. Also ‘an extensive manufactory adjoining, and measuring 204 feet in length, and of an irregular depth throughout from 42 feet east to 17 feet west, consisting of a ground-floor and two stories, three large burning kilns, slip kilns, stoves, clay-house, drying-rooms, warehouse, lathes and wheels, pot-boards, squeezing-box, plaster-moulds, colour-mill, crane, and every other convenience necessary for carrying on an extensive trade in the manufacture of earthenware. A never failing stream of excellent clear water runs through the manufactory. The premises have been substantially built within the last 8 years … The whole ranges in front of the River Avon … for which there are every facility for loading and unloading goods, and there is also a constant communication by canal boats and barges passing to and from Bristol, Bath, London, and all the towns upon the lines of the Kennet and Avon, and the Wilts and Berks, canals. There is an abundance of coal within three quarters of a mile … Lot 2 a coal yard adjoining Lot 1, and extending 112 feet in length by 54 feet in depth at the west and 32 feet at the east end … Also a capital newly erected warehouse thereon, 55 feet long and 17 feet wide, with a stable and slip-kiln … Lot 3 a large and productive garden opposite Lot 1, and fronting the south, containing about half an acre, and well stocked with fruit trees in full bearing’.
Pountney (1920, 17-18) stated that ‘Another noted pottery was close to the Lamb at Crew’s Hole, where two fairly large kilns, built of pennant stone, are still standing. They were situated within a large building of two floors, and the cones pass through the first floor and roof, and extend to a considerable height above the latter. On both the ground floor and the first floor levels are arched entrances, used by the potters for stacking the saggars when loading the wares into the kilns. These and the furnaces around the base can still be seen’.
In 1938 the City and Council of Bristol made a Clearance Order for nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 Stacey’s Rank; The Pottery, Crews Hole Road; and cottage occupied by Jones, Lamb Hill (Western Daily Press).
Wares produced
Fine industrial slip wares and mocha wares.