Casgliadau Arlein

Wassail bowl and lid made at Claypits Pottery, Ewenny. With lid (possibly not originally belonging together); yellow glaze over white slip; 18 handles (6 surviving) decorated with chevrons & open circles. Sgraffito decoration of inter-locking circles below the rim & below the handles, crude plant designs & asymmetrical leaves, springing from 2 flower pots. Lid is of better quality, yellow glazed, with 10 rows of double & triple looped handles, elaborately decorated with applied figures:- on front, a man sitting astride a barrel; on handles, various birds; a fox; & wheatsheaves. Sgrafftio designs of tulips & conventional flowers.

The ancient New Year custom of wassailing was practiced in Glamorgan, as in other parts of Wales in the nineteenth century, when parties of wassailers would progress from house to house with traditional greetings for the health and prosperity of the inhabitants, whiich were acknowledged with spiced ale, sometimes with a concoction of apples and cakes, dispensed in a wassail bowl carried around by the party.