Cup & saucer

This hand-made earthenware cup and saucer were made in Barvas, a crofting township on the west coast of the the Isle of Lewis, the northernmost island of the Outer Hebrides. The cup and saucer date from the 1860s.

The pieces have been made with a gritty clay dug from coastal glacial deposits and 'fired' in the peat on the central hearth of a thatched house. They are modelled on contemporary tableware which was becoming available at that time from Clyde and Staffordshire potteries.

For centuries it was the land which supplied the resources of everyday life for most people in Scotland. Earthenware was originally made from local clays and it was not until the middle of the 18th century that domestic pottery began to be mass-produced on an industrial scale.

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