Bribery, Alchemy, and Espionage at Athelhampton House & Gardens
- Juliet Braidwood
- Aug 5
- 3 min read
When visiting Athelhampton House & Gardens, there are plenty of easy-to-overlook details. At first glance, the Oak Panelled Room next door to Athelhampton's kitchen is plain, with little of interest. There's wood panelling, a wooden floor, a wooden dresser, and a wooden table and chairs. But when you look closer at some of the furnishings, an interesting story emerges.
On the Welsh Dresser facing you as you walk in from the Green Dining Room, there are a selection of plates - some pewter, and some pottery. The pottery plates are Lambeth delftware - a pair of words that likely mean very little to the average person.
Through the 17th and 18th century, pottery was produced in Southwark, Lambeth, Vauxhall, Bermondsey, and Aldgate. This was earthenware - pottery fired at a relatively low temperature so that it remains porous unless glazed. In these places this earthenware was then tin-glazed, where it was dipped in a glaze made of a mixture of lead oxide and tin (along with other ingredients) to give the plain white background. Decorations could then be painted on to this white base, though the artist had to be very quick and accurate, since the white glaze was very absorbent and erasing mistakes is impossible.
Earlier on, decoration tended towards monochrome, commonly blue, though sometimes purple or orange. There are some beautiful delft tiles in some of the fireplaces at Athelhampton, though none in the Oak Panelled Room.
By the late 17th century, there was an increasing fascination with "The Orient," with Chinese, Japanese, and Indian decorative arts being imported and imitated in Europe. This resulted in huge changes in anything from women's fashion, with the mantua gown to tableware, with desirable Chinese porcelain one of the most sought after commodities of this time.
Potters across Europe sought to find the secret of the Chinese porcelain: translucent, pale, and resistant to thermal shock. Experiments in making their own had varying levels of success, with all manner of ingredients (including, at points, human bone) being used. Bribery, espionage, and alchemy were all used to try and discover the true recipe. In Saxony, the first true porcelain was created in 1708, but it took until 1712 for many of the secrets to finally come out, through the letters of a Jesuit priest.
For those who couldn't afford porcelain, Lambeth delftware proved a cheap alternative. With the Chinese influences coming across through the 17th and 18th centuries, decorative designs on Lambeth delftware evolved, taking advantage of all the available colourways - blue, green, orange, yellow, and purplish black. Instead of the more detailed biblical or classical scenes, freehand slightly slapdash brushwork was used, with floral branches rendered in a very abstract manner.
Athelhampton House & Gardens are open 7 days a week, all year round, save a few days at Christmas, for you to come and visit and see these beautiful pieces of art for yourself. Book online rather than on the door to save 10% on your ticket price.
