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Pottery
Colonel Waugh and his wife started a pottery on Brownsea in 1852. They had visited the island before buying it and believed the clay they found would be suitable for porcelain, to make them a fortune. They were backed by geologists and banks, and borrowed money to create the Brownsea Clay and Pottery Company.
The pottery was built on a 14 acre site on the southwest shore of the island, and the main building was 200 feet long, 60 feet wide and was three storeys high. A massive 70 feet tall chimney rose out of the building. At one point, around 200 men worked at the pottery, many of whom lived in Maryland, but some travelled considerable distances to reach the island each day. The remains of the kilns that were used to fire bricks can still be seen on the south shore. These kilns were right at the end of the pottery.
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Kiln remains
Pottery 'tupps'
A tramway with horse-drawn trucks took the clay to the pottery from the pits in the north of the island, and then took the finished products down to pottery pier. Pottery pier is still there but it is now a dangerous and unstable structure. Outside the visitors centre, with the farm carts, you can see some of the old clap ‘tupps’ or carts, that were used to transport clay to the pottery.
Unfortunately for Colonel Waugh, the pottery could not make the fine china that it was meant to, so instead made drainpipes, chimney pots and bricks. He therefore could not pay back the money he had borrowed, and fled the island for Spain. The pottery carried on when Cavendish-Bentinck owned the island, but was not very successful and closed in 1887. Everybody who worked there lost their jobs. Lots of them went to work on the expanding farm. The pottery was left derelict, and over the western end of the island and the south shore, pieces of pottery are still everywhere.
Beach near pottery site
Pottery remains on paths
Gallery
