Plate, 9 inches diameter. Brown transfer. Printed maker's mark for Burgess & Leigh. The Rd. No. indicates a pattern registration date of 1886. In the center of the pattern is a cartouche scene. The elements in the cartouche break forth from the frame and bleed out into the rest of the scene. The river which almost bisects the scene and the distant buildings alongside the river bank in the background are a carryover from the Romantic movement, suggesting that this is very much a transitional piece. Framing the picture center left is a floral display in a large, patterned clay urn that sits on a patterned shelf. Below the shelf is another cartouche space filled with one individual flower repeated in a sheet pattern. Below that is a panel consisting of images of grapes and peaches.
The Hill Top Pottery, or Hill Pottery, formerly belonging to Ralph Wood, were for many years carried on by Samuel Alcock & Co., by whom they were in 1839 rebuilt and enlarged. In 1860 the works and general estate were purchased by Sir James Duke and Nephews, and continued by them until 1865, when they sold it to Thomas Ford, who in 1866 sold it to the Earthenware and Porcelain Company, by whom (under the management of Mr. R. Daniel, once a noted china manufacturer at Stoke, Hanley, and Burslem) it was carried on under the style of the “Hill Pottery Company, Limited, late S. Alcock & Co.”
The operations of the “Hill Pottery Company” were of short duration, for in 1867 it was put in liquidation and sold up, when the property again came into the hands of Mr. Ford. In the same year the works were divided, the china department being taken by Alcock and Diggory, and the earthenware part by “Burgess & Leigh (late S . Alcock & Co.),” by whom it was carried on under the style of “Burgess, Leigh & Co.”
The mark used by the firm is a beehive on a stand, with bees, a rose bush on either side, and a ribbon bearing the name of the pattern beneath, and under this the initials of the firm, “B. L. & Co.” Many of the patterns were registered.
