Bread Street/Avon Street, St Philip and Jacob parish.
Summary of operating dates and proprietors
| c1760-1776 | William Maynard I. |
| c1777-1797 | William Maynard II. |
| 1797-1810 | Roger Yabbicom and Henry Yabbicom I, trading as Roger Yabbicom & Son. |
| 1810-1842 | Henry Yabbicom I. |
Between 1812 and 1842 there may have been two potteries operating on the site, one run by Henry Yabbicom I and the other by his sons Henry Yabbicom II, Thomas Bawn Yabbicom and Edward Yabbicom as the directories also listed:
1812-1836 H & T Yabbicom.
1837-1842 H & E Yabbicom.
| 1847-1866 | William Henry Pardoe. |
| 1861 | Henry and Charles Pardoe. |
| 1863 | Charles and George Pardoe, trading as C & G Pardoe. |
| 1875 | James Gibbs took over the premises but he does not seem to have been a potter. |
It is not known when William Maynard I established the St Philip’s Pottery 3, although he was certainly taking apprentices from 1760. Various addresses for Maynard were given in the apprenticeship records – Old Market, Three Crown Lane, Back Lane – but later 18th-century documents certainly show him as working in Bread Street.
It is assumed that William Maynard I had left the pottery by 1776 and it was taken over by William Maynard II who had gained his freedom as a potter in August 1777 and immediately started taking apprentices. The relationship between William Maynard I and II is not known. They were not father and son, but may have been cousins. The apprenticeship records gave William Maynard II’s address as St Philip’s Plain or Bread Street but the directories listed him as a brown stone and redware potter and a chimney mould maker at Bread Street from 1787 to 1797. He then moved to the Counterslip Pottery which had been operated by Joseph Gadd and Company.
It seems most likely that Roger Yabbicom and his son, Henry Yabbicom II, previously of the Westbury-on-Trym Pottery, took over the St Philip’s Pottery 3 as the directories recorded the firm of Yabbicom and Son working as sugar, chimney and garden pot manufactures in Avon Street or Cheese Lane from 1797 to 1809. The pottery was insured for £600 in 1807 when it was described simply as ‘workshops and sheds communicating’. They also acquired the Temple Back Pottery 2 in 1806.
Roger Yabbicom died in March 1810 and both potteries were then run by Henry Yabbicom I who was described as a sugar, chimney and garden pot manufacturer. In 1815 Yabbicom rented a field called Four Acres on the Cote Estate adjoining Durdam Down for a period of seven years. It measured 91 yards by 28 yards and Yabbicom was allowed to dig and carry away clay from the land provided that ‘Mr Yabbicom engages from time to time to fill up the places from which clay is dug, and to cover them on top with the mould which has been previously removed … in consideration of his being allowed to leave at the expiration of his term one place or pit not filled up but which shall not be larger than sufficient to hold twenty cart loads of rubbish … He further agrees to pay for the said piece of land so marked out, twenty pounds p. annum …’. This lease was renewed in February 1818 in respect of a property called Gregorys Leaze.
From 1812 Henry Yabbicom I’s sons, Henry Yabbicom II and Thomas Bawn Yabbicom, were also operating a pottery in Avon Street, manufacturing stone ware. It seems likely that the two potteries shared the same premises and they are both referred to here under St Philip’s Pottery 3. The sons are listed separately in the directories, trading as H. & T. Yabbicom manufacturing crucibles, brown stone ware and improved water pipes, pantiles and fire bricks in Avon Street. From 1832 to 1842 they were trading as H. & E. Yabbicom, presumably the brothers Henry Yabbicom II and Edward Yabbicom.
From 1810 to 1842 H. & T. Yabbicom, Yabbicom & Co., and H. Yabbicom were exporting stoneware, including stone bottles and sugar moulds, to Waterford, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Guernsey, Jersey and Bordeaux.
In March 1824 the pottery was advertised for sale and was described as ‘a wharf and pottery in Avon Street, St Philip’s, late in the occupation of Messrs. Yabbicom & Sons, stone ware potters, having a frontage and wharfage of 80 feet, and measuring in depth 167 feet or thereabouts’. Despite the suggestion that Yabbicom and Sons had vacated the premises it was again advertised in April 1844 when it was described as ‘a spacious pottery situate in Avon Street … opposite the works of the Bristol Gas Light Co., having a frontage against the Floating Harbour of 80 feet’.
By 1844 Henry Yabbicom I appears to have retired and his son, Henry Yabbicom II, had left the St Philip’s Pottery 3 and was carrying on the business at the Temple Back Pottery 2.
By 1847 the St Philip’s Pottery 3 had been taken over by William Henry Pardoe who was listed in the directories as a potter and tobacco pipe maker in Avon Street. From 1849 he was simply described as a tobacco pipe manufacturer although in 1858 he was a ‘vitrified stone ware potter, tobacco pipe, garden pot & red ware manufacturer [at] Nantgarw, near Cardiff … and at Avon Street, St Philip’s, Bristol’.
He was recorded in the Cardiff Directory of 1858 as ‘William Henry Pardoe, vitrified stone ware potter, tobacco pipe, garden pot & red ware manufacturer, Nantgarw, near Cardiff, Glamorganshire; and at Avon Street, St Philip’s, Bristol. Jars for spirits, porter, ale, ginger beer, and other bottles, warranted not to absorb and withstand acids. Gentlemen supplied with every description of garden pots, cheaper and better burners than any others in the West of England. Superior fire-clay mixed for use. Post-orders punctually attended to’.
In 1859 Pardoe advertised for ‘Potters, etc. Wanted, a thrower and turner; also from ten to twenty hands, at tobacco pipe making. Constant work at usual wages; but parties not connected with the union preferred. Apply at the works, St Philip’s, Bristol; or at Nantgarw Pottery, near Cardiff. Wm Henry Pardoe, proprietor’.
The directories for 1860 to 1866 listed William Henry Pardoe as a tobacco pipe and brown ware garden pot manufacturer in Avon Street, although the directory for 1861 also recorded the pottery as being run by his sons, Henry and Charles Pardoe, and that for 1863 showed it run by his sons, Charles and George Pardoe.
William Henry Pardoe died in 1867 and there are no further reference to the pottery in the directories. In September 1875 a James Gibbs was noted as the tenant of ‘all that pottery erected and built by the said Thomas Hooper Riddle … and formerly in the occupation of Messrs Yabbicom … and [in 1848] in the occupation of William Henry Pardoe’. There are no references to James Gibbs as a potter and he may have been carrying on some other trade on the premises.
Wares produced
Red earthenwares, including sugar moulds, chimney pots and garden pots and, under the Pardoes, clay tobacco pipes.
H & T Yabbicom and H & E Yabbicom made stonewares.