SecretLeeds - History, culture and architecture in Leeds

Here is the link to my flickr site showing some of the buildings in Leeds decorated with Burmantofts Faience, I would like to hear from anyone who has information about the Burmantofts pottery.http://www.flickr.com/photos/bagpussonspeed/Enjoy!

Since Secret Leeds launched, I have been seeing things in places I have walked past a thousand times before & not noticed. This entrance is right next to the Clock Cafe. I don't know if it is Burmantofts pottery or not. Bagpuss, you're clearly the expert...

Hi Munki, thanks for the reply. These tiles are probably Maw and Co, this is the pottery with the closest match in style and are becoming very rare these days to find as most interior porches were ripped out during the 60's and 70's. The tiled entrances were popular in terraced houses and can still be found in places such as Headingley and the like. Also, the interior entrance to Leeds Central library has almost the same tiles.I agree with what you say- once you begin looking around you, then things appear that you would not have noticed before. Cheers mate!

Hi Bagpuss, Seen as you like the Burmantofts so much i thought you could look here http://www.fgvw.co.uk/html/woods/gledhallbathroom.htm you probably already know about the place, But if you don't then it's supposed to have one of the finest tile displys in the world. I used to be the postie to this place & was always having a wander round. I just walked in, There quite a bizzare bunch who reside there. They open it up to the public on heritage day (Normally September)

Thanks for the info. I have seen it but thanks for raising it anyway. I will be adding my photos of the bathroom on flickr but on the FGVW website you can see the panorama of it and that is much better than my photos. I wrote a little article about the bathroom featured on the FGVW site and is somewhere there on the site.The site also shows details of the Roman baths in the woods. Have you ever seen the bath house? Its really spooky to see something so old in such a fantastic condition.

Yes i've seen the old bath house. Gledhow valley woods is my back garden. There's a view from my penthouse (ah-hum) in the guest gallery's on F.G.V.W

Is this Burmantofts Faience? I took it at Interplay Theatre in Armley.

Also found this at the end of a wall today. Could this brick have been produced by the Leeds Fireclay Company, who went on to produce faience?

Hi WSmith,the tiles are very nice. They are made by a method called 'dust pressing' and are probably a lead based glaze. Having said all that, they are very close to being Burmantofts but could be over 20 other factories also. Sometimes the only way to know is when one becomes loose and drops off- you can see the marks on the back. So, unless there is a detail of it in a register listing the tiles as being those of Burmantofts it would be hard to say.The brick is made by Leeds Fireclay Co of which Burmantofts was one of the factories that were part of the LFC. The brick could have been made at either Burmantofts, Wortley, Pudsey or Huddersfield. Its very nice to see pictures like these so keep them coming.All the best m8

Thanks Bagpuss! Were the 20 nearly-but-not-quite-Burmantofts factories all in the Leeds area, or was the stuff made all over the world?See also 'The Angel of Armley' thread I started today - that seems to be made of some kind of glazed pottery.