NEOLITHIC PEAT FIRED POTS FROM NEW TOLSTA.

 

It was way back in 2016 when work first started on the foundations for my studio that I discovered the Neolithic axe head. It had lain not far from the surface for the past 6000 years and it felt extra ordinary to have been the first person to have touch it all those years.  

A fine example of its type in gneiss granite, which has disappeared into a drawer of our local museum, and one day may see the light of day again. Last summer on seeing a small exhibition of rustic pottery at An Lanntair in Stornoway I decided to find out where the source of clay local to Tolsta could be found. Our soil is mainly a well-drained sandy loam, and while good for carrots and root crops, in general it loses heart quickly due to the lack of clay. In times past clay was needed to dress the tops of the black house walls encouraging water to run off, so it seems inevitable that there must be a local source. I didn’t have to look far. South of the village I took the steep track leading down to the Camach beach. This part of the coast is on the move and landslide are a regular occurrence. Part way along the beach is a flat section of schist rock and at its base is a mound of clay. I took a bucket and towel with me and managed to lug a couple of buckets full. The clay had to be soaked into a gruel of liquid mud and then passed through a sieve to remove any grit. I then let it dry outside on the windowsill for a couple of weeks, turning the stodgy stuff until it became useable. I needed it firm enough to roll out into long sausages in order to construct the coiled pots. The building of a pot without a wheel will always result in interesting wobbly items, and it is there that the charm of these objects lie, along with the simple scratched decoration. They were then left to thoroughly dry out. The pots would have originally been fired using peat and this is where my old Rayburn comes into play. While I prepared my cake mix I would also have a wobbly pot warming up in the oven. When the pot was good and hot and the oven up to baking I replaced pot for cake and transferred the pot into the fire box, making sure there was enough high quality peat to cover the pot and take it to at least 600 degrees. The pot would glow bright red, almost transparent and time would do the rest. Killing two birds with one stone as it were, I was able to fire my pots and bake my cake, both turned out successfully. Over the following few weeks I popped more pots into the firebox on baking days. The following morning I fished out from the ash a still warm crogan pot. The clay had turn a rich terracotta colour and bore incidental marking depending on how it had reacted with the peat. I now have a small shelf of Tolsta ceramics that I will be adding to the eclectic mix of items for sale from my studio this coming summer.