Canning
Loving cup height 16 cm. Impressed H-Canning / Wellow-Pottery / Hants
Loving cup height 16 cm. Impressed H-Canning / Wellow-Pottery/ Hants
Featured in the V & A Brown Muggs Exhibition (catalogue page 74/182) and now in Hampshire Museums Service's Allen Gallery in Alton.
A series of email conversations with Michael Sleigh of the Wellow History Society revealed that the Wellow area was the source for clay used in pipe and brick making and a Rockingham (no connection with the Yorkshire one) brick works existed in the late 19th century. An early country pottery may also have existed but no stoneware pottery has been traced. A draft lease from 1854 survives between William Nightingale of East Wellow and Cornelius Beavis of Milbrook (Builder) and Henry Canning of Greenwich, Kent (Gent.) Click button below for full details of lease. However, there is no evidence of any final agreement and it has not been possible to trace Henry Canning in the Greenwich (or Wellow) records. The loving cup itself is well made and has a number of sprigs suggesting its manufacture in London by James Stiff. It may have been intended to demonstrate the quality of the clay from the Wellow clay pit. Finally, to further muddy the waters, Hampshire Museum Services (information Neil Hyman) recently acquired a light coloured brick marked CANNING (salvaged from the floor of Wellow Church) .