![]() ![]() Matlock’s Leap – A Story of Improbable Escapes… and Graverobbing.As soon as a child first steps into the domain of knowledge from his naïve state, the first thing that is seen in his hands is a slate and a Slate Pencil to write upon it.The Blessed Nicholas Garlick – Glossop’s Almost Saint.The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.1 – Brown Stoneware & Marmalade Pots.The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.2 – Spongeware.The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.3 – Industrial Slipware.The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.4 – Creamware, Pearlware, & Whiteware.The Rough Guide to Pottery Pt.5 – Blue and White Bits.This blog is intended as a whimsical exploration of the odd and often overlooked historical and archaeological aspects of Glossop town. Still, it’s a nice little find, and a wonderful piece of social history.Īs ever, comments and questions are most welcome. ![]() And a brief glance around the internet produces a number of similar results. The fact that the pencil may have started out being used in Manchester, and ended up in my onion patch in Glossop, via in a field in Broadbottom, is a cautionary tale for archaeological intepretation – we could have simply assumed that my house was once used as a school.Īnyway, slate pencils are not uncommon finds in fields and gardens – night soiling means they get around, and they stick around as, like pottery, they are virtually indestructible – Here, for example, is one on a blog run by a gardener who records the things she finds in the soil. the school) was probably Manchester, or perhaps Ashton Under Lyne (although, I suppose there is no reason to assume that it couldn’t have come from a school in Broadbottom). The source for this soil is, I think, just behind the garden centre, but the original location for the pencil (i.e. This is the interesting bit – the raised bed in which I found it was filled with soil that we bought from Lymefield Garden Centre in Broadbottom (highly recommended, by the way). It is then thrown away into the toilet with all the other rubbish, and taken away by the night soil man. Via the process of night soiling, it ended up spread onto a field. It starts with a pencil being dropped by a child and broken. ‘The Cultural Biography of Objects’ p.170)Īnd this object has a fascinating biography. “Not only do objects change through their existence, but they often have the capability of accumulating histories, so that the present significance of an object derives from the persons and events to which it is connected.” We archaeologists are obsessed with object biographies: The question is, then, how did the slate pencil fragment end up in my garden? Victorian writing slate, lifted from this website. Here’s what it would have looked like when it was being used. Sadly, it wasn’t in the Glossop area, but in deepest, darkest, Lancashire, but I thought I’d share it anyway to illustrate my pencil… so to speak. I love this object, and it is among my favourite things that I have found. Wonderful – squared paper for maths problems, and probably for art too. I turned it over, and found this on the reverse More engraved lines. But look at the edges too – they are shaped – it may be mass produced, but some care has gone into how it looks. You can clearly see the engraved lines – thin, thick, thin, for the upper, middle, and lower part of each letter – to keep the child’s letter forms perfect and copperplate. You can see the lines used to guide the child learning copperplate script. Last year, I was poking around a Victorian rubbish tip with a friend (as you do…), and I came across this broken example of a writing slate. A complete version of a slate pencil – again, you can see the grinding marks where it was shaped. Years ago, I found an old wooden pencil case in a junk store, and in it were two complete and several broken slate pencils – it’s nice to see a complete original one. Instead, they practised their copperplate handwriting on slate writing tablets with slate pencils such as this. Paper was a very expensive commodity in the Victorian period, and you certainly wouldn’t have given it to children to learn to write on. ![]() Ok, so I know it doesn’t look like much (so many of my blog posts start like that), but it’s the bottom end of a Victorian (or very early Edwardian) child’s slate pencil. And lots of it.īut for now, I present the second wonderful thing, a gift from my raised bed of onions and garlic! You can see the marks where it has been shaped, though I don’t know how they were made. The first of which will have to wait… it will take a bit of unpicking (and cleaning and researching). I was going to blog about some bits and pieces I had found recently, but two wonderful things happened over the last few days. ![]() A glorious weekend – I got all my vegetables planted, the garden was tidied, the lawn was mown… and wine was drunk in the sunset. ![]()
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