Tuesday 7 September 2010

Ulster Folk Museum

During my visit to Cultra this morning we had tea in one of the traditional houses and here are two photographs I took in the house.

This tile is at the doorway and bears the stamp Caledonia.  I wonder if this means that the tile came from Scotland?

The other photograph shows a milk jug which was sitting on a piece of furniture in the house.  I am informed by Mark Thompson that this is called wither Torquayware or Cornishware and that Scots phrases were added to local pottery to appeal to the once large Scottish tourist market.  He has some of these at home.  The significant thing is that something aimed at the Scottish market, with a Scots phrase on it, found its way to Ulster.  'Straucht frae the coo' - so presumably this is a milk jug.

3 comments:

  1. Hi

    Your above information on the cream jug needs to be corrected.

    This jug was made in SCOTLAND & is called Cumnockware made at Cumnock in Ayrshire - founded in the 1790's - most of the Scottish motto ware was made from the 1890's thru to around 1906. It is found all over the world and is highly collected.
    The Scottish Cumnockware commands good prices on the antique market compared to the mass produced English Torquayware & even German mottoware that all copied the Scottish Mottoware with Scots phrases.

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  2. Andrew, thanks for the correction. Cumnock is a grand wee place and I have visited it a few times. I have a keen interest in a man called Andrew Gibson who was born in Cumnock but came to Belfast and worked in a shipping company. While he was here he collected one of the largest collections of Burns and Burnsiana in the world and it is still in the Linen Hall Library in Belfast.

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  3. Andrew, is there by any chance a website with more information on Cumnockware?

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