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Wassail bowl, Claypits Pottery, Ewenny, about 1910. This is the work of a potter at Ewenny in the Vale of Glamorgan. Ewenny has a long tradition of making pottery. All the materials were at hand - red clay, glaze materials to finish the wares, stone to build the kilns and coal to fire the pots. There have been 15 potteries in the area at one time or another. Now there are only two.

The ancient New Year practice of wassailing was practiced in Glamorgan, when parties would progress from house to house with traditional greetings for the health and prosperity of the inhabitants, which were acknowledged with spiced ale, dispensed in a wassail bowl carried round by the party. The elaborately decorated earthenware bowls made at Ewenny were locally famous.

White slip, green glaze; 17 plain loop handles, with band of sgraffito decoration based on interlinking circles above & inscription below. The lid is domed; surmounted by figure of a hen; 8 rows of double handles, with bird figures; between the handles a fox, a tree with birds, a pig & piglets, acorns & sheaves. In front, figures of a man & woman, the man wearing a billy-cock hat & collarless jacket, seated at a table; the woman wearing a brimmed hat & dress with cape; between them is a barrel, marked XXX.

Wassail bowl, 1910. Made at Claypitsi Pottery, Ewenny, south Wales. The wassail bowl would be filled with sugar, fruit, spices and beer and carried from door to door on New Year’s Day or Twelfth Night. (Text from Oriel 1 exhibition at St Fagans National Museum of History).