Publication Account
Date 1986
Event ID 1017673
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1017673
Portobello was one of the principal centres of the ceramic industry on the S bank of the River Forth, and at their closure in 1972 these premises of the Thistle Pottery of A W Buchan & Company Ltd, formerly known as the Portobello or Waverley Pottery, probably const ituted the last complete industrial pottery in Scotland . First established in about 1770, the pottery came into the ownership of the Buchan family in 1867. It was substantially rebuilt and extended after 1879, partly covering the area of an infilled 18th century harbour which was originally built to serve Rathbone's Midlothian Pottery nearby. At the date of survey it manufactured a decorated and buff-glazed stoneware using ball-clay and china-clay imported from Devon and Cornwall.
Much of the plant and machinery was of comparatively recent date but included a steam-powered pan-mill for crushing faulty or impure ware. It had a cast-iron pan 7 ft (2.13mm) in diameter which was driven by an upright shaft and overhead gearing; it was rotated beneath a pair of solid iron-rimmed sandstone wheels 3 ft 6 in (1.07m) in diameter and 1ft (0.31m) wide. The earliest identifiable feature of structural interest was a timber king-post roof-structure of about 1800; this was incorporated in a two-storeyed brick building which had a two-bay arcaded and gabled frontage to Harbour Road.
Three coal-fired bottle-kilns of traditional design were installed in 1903, 1906 and 1909, and, a lthough replaced by an electric furnace in 1956, the two latest kilns still surv ived at the clos ure of the works. At that time only the 1909 kiln was access ible for detailed inspection and measurement.
Constructed of a yellowish-coloured brick laid in an English garden-wall bond, the circular kiln stands to a height of 39 ft (11.89m). It has an angular bottle profile, slightly narrower in the neck than its neighbour, and the drip-course at the top is ornamented with a dentil-band. At the base the kiln measures 23 ft 3 in (7.09m) in diameter over walls 3 ft (0.91m) thick. Ten arched furnace-holes with associated ash-pits are formed in the perimeter of the kiln and correspond with dwarf 'bag-walls' inside. In the initial firing-process a circular vent in the saucer-domed roof of the kiln-chamber was left open, thus creating an updraught; the damper was then closed and a down-draught was induced through a circular aperture in the centre of the kiln floor, passing beneath a tunnelled floor, upwards through mural flues and emerging around the outer rim of the dome. Each firing consumed about 13-14 tons (c. 13.72 tonnes) of coal, and, including a cooling period, lasted for about two and a half days. The kiln had a capacity for about 130 piles of saggars.
Information from ‘Monuments of Industry: An Illustrated Historical Record’, (1986).
