Spongeware cup

This partially complete cup was recovered from a 19th-century context at Hungate. It dates to the second half of the century when these so-called 'sponge wares' became popular as cheap and cheerful household crockery.

The term 'spongeware' describes a type of pottery where colour, in this case blue cobalt, has been applied using a piece of natural sponge. The sponge is either used in its fluffy 'loose' state or was tied with a thread to draw parts of the sponge together to form patterns. More elaborate designs could be made by cutting out shapes in the harder sponge root. This could then be used like a printer's block to repeat patterns, sometimes in combination with other designs and using a variety of colours. These so-called sponge-printed vessels are not common at Hungate, whereas the simple loose designs as seen on this cup occur quite frequently.

Spongewares probably originated in Scottish potteries in the middle and second half of the 19th century. The potteries around Glasgow such as the Clyde Pottery Company, were amongst the first to develop this technique, although production in Staffordshire and in the Llanelly Pottery in Wales is also known. It is thought that the idea developed out of the use of sponges elsewhere in the pottery process, such as wiping and smoothing the pottery surfaces, and sometimes in applying glazes. They became a handy medium for developing new ways of quickly applying decoration without the laborious transfer-printing or costly painting by hand.

Spongeware was produced for the lower end of the consumer market, and for export to the African colonies and to Canada. It is interesting to see it appearing in quantity on Hungate in contexts thought to date to the late 19th century. As work progresses on site, we hope to make progress in both identifying the sources of this material and in tightening up the date when it was popular here amongst the poorer households in York.