Cottage Ware This ware featured various cottages, inns and water mills and appears to have been introduced in 1929, when the Anne Hathaway series was mentioned in The Pottery Gazette in September of that year. Cottage ware was mentioned again in January 1934, when The Pottery Gazette wrote, 'The "Old English Cottage" series, of which considerable quantities have been despatched in recent months, is about to be represented in a new guise, namely as a line of old ivory. To those people, who have a leaning towards something novel, but who are not enamoured of ultra-gay colourings, this new treatment will unquestionably appeal.' In September 1934 The Pottery Gazette published a photographic illustration of Ye Olde Inne, showing a plate, jam pot, sugar shaker and 3-piece condiment set. The trade fair at Olympia in 1935 was reported in the trade papers. It was evidently well-attended and Queen Mary purchased several pieces of cottage ware from the Ann Hathaway's Cottage and Ye Olde Mill series, the latter having recently been introduced. Always great innovators and believers in advertising, Grimwades offered some of their ware as premiums i.e. customers would collect wrappers from various food items, chocolate, for example, and be able to send off to Grimwades to redeem these against a cheaper purchase of various wares. A four-piece teaset in Ye Olde Inne, and comprising teapot, hot water jug, cream and sugar, has been found bearing a Nestle's label tied on with silk ribbon. The cottage ware was hand painted and this can give subtle variations to the designs, as one paintress's work was never exactly like another's. The pottery was intended for use at the table and generally comprised four-piece teasets (teapot, hot water jug, cream jug and sugar bowl), milk jugs, biscuit barrels, cheese and butter dishes, jam and preserve pots, cruets (salt and pepper) and condiments sets (salt, pepper and mustard), sugar shakers and dessert plates (now more popularly used as decorative wall plates). More rarely found are tea cups, saucers and plates, and table lamp bases. There are five designs in cottage ware: Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Olde England, Shakespeare's Birthplace, Ye Olde Inne and Ye Olde Mill. Olde England is generally found bearing the Grimwades Rubian Art backstamp.
Ann Hathaway's Cottage
(picture page 49)
Date of manufacture 1929+ Pattern Number 6605 (Tea plate), 6805 (cruet) Registered number: Registration applied for Backstamp 24 sometimes accompanied by BRITISH and REGN APPLIED FOR. This series first made its appearance in 1929 and was commented on by The Pottery Gazette in their September issue. 'Those dealers,' they wrote, 'who
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