The Rockingham, or Waterloo, Kiln in

Swinton, South Yorkshire Swinton is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England on the west bank of the River Don. It has a population of 15,559 (2011). The town is five miles north-northeast of the larger town of Rotherham and direct ...

, England, is a

pottery Pottery is the process and the products of forming vessels and other objects with clay and other ceramic materials, which are fired at high temperatures to give them a hard and durable form. Major types include earthenware, stoneware and por ...

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...

dating from 1815. It formed part of the production centre for the

Rockingham Pottery The Rockingham Pottery was a 19th-century manufacturer of porcelain of international repute, supplying fine wares and ornamental pieces to royalty and the aristocracy in Britain and overseas, as well as manufacturing porcelain and earthenwar ...

which, in the early 19th century, produced highly-decorative

Rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

porcelain Porcelain () is a ceramic material made by heating substances, generally including materials such as kaolinite, in a kiln to temperatures between . The strength and translucence of porcelain, relative to other types of pottery, arises mainl ...

. The pottery failed in the mid-19th century, and the kiln is one of the few remaining elements of the Rockingham manufactory. It is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

and forms part of the Rockingham Works

Scheduled monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage and d ...

. The kiln is currently on the

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...

Heritage at Risk Register An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for actio ...

History

The original factory on the Swinton site produced simple

earthenware Earthenware is glazed or unglazed nonvitreous pottery that has normally been fired below . Basic earthenware, often called terracotta, absorbs liquids such as water. However, earthenware can be made impervious to liquids by coating it with a ce ...

pottery. The first recorded operator was a Joseph Flint, who in the 1740s was renting the site from the

Marquess of Rockingham Marquess of Rockingham, in the County of Northampton, was a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1746 for Thomas Watson-Wentworth, 1st Earl of Malton. The Watson family descended from Lewis Watson, Member of Parliament f ...

. A partnership with the

Leeds Pottery Leeds Pottery, also known as Hartley Greens & Co., is a pottery manufacturer founded around 1756 in Hunslet, just south of Leeds, England. It is best known for its creamware, which is often called Leedsware; it was the "most important rival" in t ...

failed and was dissolved by 1806. The subsequent owners, the Brameld family, built the Rockingham Kiln, and other structures on the site, in 1815. The date, the year of the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...

, led to the kiln's alternative name, the Waterloo Kiln. Despite the Brameld's investigations into the production of high-quality

, the venture continued to be unsuccessful and the firm was extricated from a further

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor ...

in 1826 only by the intervention of William Fitzwilliam, 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, who had inherited the

Wentworth Woodhouse Wentworth Woodhouse is a Grade I listed country house in the village of Wentworth, in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. It is currently owned by the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust. The building has m ...

estate from his uncle, the second Marquess of Rockingham. The Earl's patronage, permitting the use of the Rockingham name and family crest, together with providing direct financial support, saw the

develop into a major producer of elaborate

rococo Rococo (, also ), less commonly Roccoco or Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colours, sculpted moulding, ...

-style porcelain, which enjoyed royal endorsement at home and considerable sales abroad. The factory produced major pieces including a full desert service for

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

which took eight years to complete. Ruth Harman, in her 2017 revised volume, ''Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South'', of the Pevsner Buildings of England series, notes that "perfection was their undoing" and by 1842 the Rockingham firm was again bankrupt and the site was closed. The Pottery Ponds site is administered by Rotherham Museums. As at November 2022, the kiln is on

. Recent interest in the Rockingham Works has seen the erection of a commemorative sculpture in Swinton in 2003, and a community heritage project at the site in 2021, directed by the artist Carlos Cortes.

Architecture and description

The Rockingham Kiln is believed to be the only surviving such pottery kiln in Yorkshire, and one of the few remaining in England. The high kiln is bottle-shaped and is constructed in

English Bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by si ...

red brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

. Harman records that the structure is more accurately described as a "bottle-shaped brick oven ontaininga kiln". The kiln is a

and forms part of the Rockingham Works

Notes

References

Sources

* {{Cite book , last1=Harman, first1=Ruth , last2=Pevsner, first2=Nikolaus , author2-link=Nikolaus Pevsner , series=

The Buildings of England ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

, title=Yorkshire West Riding: Sheffield and the South , url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/1019489538 , year=2017 , publisher=

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, location=New Haven, US and London , isbn=978-0-300-22468-9 Grade II* listed buildings in South Yorkshire Swinton, South Yorkshire Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham British porcelain English pottery Ceramics manufacturers of England Structures on the Heritage at Risk register Kilns