Post-medieval ceramics have often received less attention than pottery from earlier periods. Yet, ceramics remain a valuable source of information about trade, industry, and daily life in the 17th and 18th centuries. Both locally made and imported ceramics can be found at post-medieval sites in South East Scotland. The post-medieval period appears to have seen significant changes in ceramic production and fashion. Famously, the 18th century was characterized by a growth in the use of ceramics and the introduction of new types of pottery such as porcelain. However, a shift towards smoother ceramics was underway in South East Scotland before the adoption of porcelain.
Excavations on the former site of Marlin’s Wynd (where the Tron Kirk now stands) produced a wide range of wares from early 17th-century contexts, including Scottish Post-Medieval Oxidised Ware and Scottish Post-Medieval Reduced Ware (which may have been locally produced), North European Earthenwares, North Holland slipware, Low Countries Whiteware, German Stoneware, several types of French ceramics, a Flemish tin-glazed earthenware jug, a fragment of an Iberian Redware, and a fragment from a Late Ming Chinese porcelain dish (Cross, Lawson and Cook 2013). A range of wares have also been discovered at sites in smaller burghs. For example, excavations at Roxburgh Street in Kelso uncovered Scottish Post-Medieval Oxidised Ware and Scottish Post-Medieval Reduced Ware, various local slipwares including one decorated slipware showing ‘no similarities’ to known examples of slipwares from Scotland or abroad, tin-glazed earthenware, and imported Continental stoneware. It is clear that even before the great expansion in ceramics of the late 18th century, the South East of Scotland was using ceramics of varying types and from a wide range of sources.
The post-medieval period saw a significant expansion in the use of glass. During the 17th century much of the glass used in the region was imported. However, commercial glass production was also taking place in Leith and Prestonpans in the 17th century (Bremner 1869, 376). Recent excavations by AOC Archaeology at the former site of the Edinburgh and Leith glassworks on Salamander Street in Leith have been highly productive, and are providing substantial insights into the development of the glass industry during the 18th century.