Monument record MDR11617 - Post-medieval pottery (site of), south of Hazard Hill, Ashby Road, Ticknall

This site can be identified with Thomas Hanson, one of the potters named in a clay agreement of 1690. In 1711, a description of the site included 'a mault kill [kiln] and pump belonging to the said kill adjoining to a house … where Thomas Henson inhabits'. When Hanson died in 1724 his inventory showed that not only was he a potter, with potting tools worth £2, but that he was heavily involved in farming and malting, with malt worth £120 in a chamber. Potting ceased with the death of Thomas's son Joseph in 1758. Pottery from this site, which includes fourteen little heads used as the knobs on chafing dishes, indicates that it was in use from at least the late Tudor period and must be associated with one of the earliest potters. There were still two or three large heaps of pots there after the Second World War. However, subsequent ploughing has reduced these to an extensive area of ploughed potshards and kiln waste, with a large orange patch of burnt earth where the kiln must have been. The site is now down to pasture. (1)