Topic: Nailsea?

[RAY]

i can remember my G grandad telling the story as he had 3 hanging on the wall when  i was a small child, the story around them was .... , really it was for smuggling spice's and tea that's why most of them are very dark blue/green glass, in the middle of the 1800's  spices from the far east had the same value as gold  in England and the same for tea, then it could be sold on the black market, it's just like smuggling drugs today and if they got caught who knows what would happen to them

[Bernard C]

Ray, that's delightful.   Thanks for your memories.

Bernard C.  

[Adam]

Bernard - Tut tut, you must mean the High Level Bridge on Tyneside.  The Tyne Bridge is the Sydney Harbour type one.  I'd love to see a train going over the latter!

Adam D.

[Bernard C]

Bernard - Tut tut, you must mean the High Level Bridge on Tyneside.  The Tyne Bridge is the Sydney Harbour type one.  I'd love to see a train going over the latter!

It's a fair cop, Adam — guilty as charged.

Am I correct in thinking that the four bridges are the High Level Bridge, the Tyne Bridge, the Millenium Bridge, and, at the bottom, the Swing Bridge?

Also, have they arranged a regular test of the Millenium Bridge, so that you can be certain of watching it perform?

Bernard C.  

[david31162]

Thanks for all the information folks.
Looking at some of the pictures of rolling pins it seems as though I may have had a Nailsea piece before. I hadn't realised the white thin walled glass pins with painted scences were Nailsea.
Oh and the theory about the contraband inside may be possible for some, particularlly the thin walled rolling pins. Mine is sealed at one end and has a hole the size of a pin head at the snapped pontil end, so you couldnt really get  anything in it.
Thanks again
David

[Bernard C]

David — Please be cautious about using the term "Nailsea".   There was a glass house at Nailsea, near Bristol, but Hajdamach only uses the term in connection with trailed glass, thus:

Trailed decoration is often termed 'Nailsea' but was made by glasshouses in all parts of the country. ...

"Nailsea" was one of a range of terms used by old-style experts, particularly auctioneers, for "Don't know".   Other terms in this category were "Mary Gregory" and "Stourbridge".    The problem was that as experts, "Don't know" was then unacceptable.   Now, of course, "Don't know" or a similar form of words is a frequently used part of any authority's vocabulary, and, conversely, one should be suspicious of anyone in this field who doesn't use it.

Hajdamach is quite interesting in this respect.   He is positive about such terminology, but his references are rather difficult to find, the above being in a picture caption.   The book is interesting as well for what he left out.    His publishers obviously needed to sell the book in quantity to make a profit, so he took it quite gently, trying not to offend anyone.

I think future glass historians will come to view the book's publication in 1991 as the date when a new realism came into attributing British glass.   This has been both helped and hindered by the Internet.   Helped by making information and opinion more readily available and open to criticism, and hindered by the continued need for eBay and other sellers to use terms such as "Nailsea", as that is what many collectors search for.

On a lighter note, I actually saw the following attribution in a British auction catalogue some years ago — "Possibly European or American".    What an elegant way of saying "Beat's me — I haven't a clue"!

Bernard C.  

[Adam]

Bernard - Those are four OF the bridges.  You also have King Edward (rail only), Scotswood, Redheugh (pronounced red-yoof) and the one carrying the Metro whose name if any I don't know.

Re the Millenium Bridge, it is very well worth watching work.  There are notices posted on it giving the next time of opening.  As there is very little big river traffic now, they seem to open it fairly regularly for the tourists.  River trip boats pass under at the appropriate times!  They may have a website giving times.

Adam D.

[KevinH]

Peter provided some interesting links earlier relating to the glass rolling pins and one of those included an extract from a book by Maciver Percival (and a jolly good book it was, too!). Percival stated, "They were mainly made at Bristol ...".

However, we should bear in mind that in the days of that book dealers, authors and collectors tended to attribute many "unknown" items to Bristol and this unfortunately still has its followers today - particularly in the USA where auctioneers and others attribute all sorts of things as "Bristol glass".

Both "Bristol" and "Nailsea" seem to have become ingrained generic terms that need to be taken with very large pinches of salt when stated as a specific attribution. Maybe certain items can be very reasonably linked to glasshouses in those places, and maybe some items had a loose connection to Bristol, having been shipped out of that port in times past. But much of the modern references to "Bristol" and "Nailsea" glass are just hangovers from the days when the names were convenient for, as Bernard pointed out, a lack of conviction in the "don't know" category.

[Bernard C]

Peter — Thanks for the links, most interesting.

Adam — Thanks for the chapter and verse on Newcastle's bridges.    I will do the research before our next visit to this great city, hopefully within the next two or three months.

Kevin — Thanks.   I was starting to feel a trifle lonely!

Bernard C.