Find Study: The Pipes

A fascinating assemblage of clay pipe fragments were uncovered over the course of our excavations in Gleann Leac-na-Muidhe in 2023 spanning the 17th-19th centuries. This blog post will explore a few that tells us exciting insights into those who would have spent time at the ‘summerhouse’ both in the 17th century during its use as a hunting residence, and later when the area was reoccupied as a sheepfarm and visited by tourists. In total 20 fragments of clay pipe were recovered from the excavation.

The Auld Lang Syne Pipe

This pattern appears from the 1850s till the turn of the 20th century and may have been manufactured in the vicinity of Barnsley in England. The design evokes the popular lines of Robert Burns’ poem ‘Auld Lang Syne’. Pipes of this style appear to have been exported to America and Canada.

The Mulberry Pattern Pipe

This clay pipe was likely produced in Hadleigh in Suffolk between 1650-1660 and features moulded decoration in the form of a triangular mulberry. Mulberry bushes were imported in the early 17th century to Britain by King James VI and the berries were used to make jams, sauces and sherbets, and cures for ringworm.

The Earliest Pipe

This pipe represents the earliest clay pipe fragment from this site, it was recovered from the fill of a drain under the stables annex of the structure and appears to have been part of a collection of ceramics fragments which filled the drain cut. This style of pipe belongs to the late 16th or early 17th century and so it fairly early in the proliferation of tobacco and smoking into Scotland.

Colonial connections and Glencoe

The earliest pipe stem represented in this assemblage shows the connectivity of the Glencoe MacDonalds as early as the late 16th or early 17th centuries to flows of commodities aquired through colonial exploration, settlement and trade such as tobacco.

King James VI famously disapproved of the smoking of tobacco, publishing ‘A Counterblaste to Tobacco‘ in 1604. It is clear that tobacco at this time was still a precious commodity as the bowl of the pipe is very small allowing only small pinches of tobacco to be smoked at a time.

The taking of tobacco as ‘snuff’ was the origional way to consume tobacco – practiced by indigenous communities in the Americas – this practice was taken back by French, Spanish and English colonial explorers. By the later 17th century the consumption of tobacco by smoking was viewed as common and ‘snuff’ became popular once again with the elite after Charles II picked up the habit in exile.

The mulbery, represented on the second of the pipes featured in this post, tells another story of global connections and imperial aspirations. James VI imported Mulberry bushes to England as part of a scheme to kickstart domestic silk production there in the early 17th century. Mulberry leaves are a key component of the diet of the silk worm which the King sought to cultivate. The exporting of mulberry and silkworms to Virginia allowed for the establishment of silk as a cash crop there in the newly established colonies.

In the later history of the Glen as represented by the ‘Auld Lang Syne’ pipe, this site became a location for tourists visiting the glen and the estate of Lord Strathcona. Lord Strathcona although raised in Forres, Moray, was a commissioner, governor and principal shareholder of the Hudson Bay Company, president of the Montreal Bank, and co-founder of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Gaining the title of Lord Strathcona in 1896 after buying the estate of Glencoe in 1895 and constructing Glencoe House, now the Glencoe House Hotel, he oversaw several extensive alterations to the Glencoe landscape including the planting of ornamental gardens and creation of artificial lochs. Some of the Victorian pipes may represent pieces smoked by his visitors being given tours of the Glencoe Estate.

– Edward Stewart

Reference

Oswald, A., (1975) Clay Pipes for the Archaeologist, (British Archaeological Reports, Oxford) Vol 14. pp. 38-41 & 98.