PIPE (SMOKING)

David Higgins reports "A complete pipe bowl with 74mm of surviving stem (2 7/8") and a stem bore of 8/64" was found on the beach at Haverigg, to the south-west side of the Lake District in Cumbria. The whole fragment has been very abraded by wave action so that all of the original external surface has been lost. It is possible, however, to make out traces of a band of milling at the bowl rim and it is possible that the faint 'shadow' of a circular maker's mark survives on the heel, but this is now completely illegible. Discolouration inside the bowl shows that the pipe has been smoked. The white fabric of which it is made is quite fine, with the only inclusions visible under a 10x lens being sparse rounded grains of what appears to be quartz (sand). The bowl form (Merseyside Type H7/H8 of c1640-1670; cf Higgins 2008, 147) is characteristic of the south Lancashire industry, which was centred on Rainford, about 12 miles to the north-east of Liverpool, and this is the likely origin of the pipe. Seventeenth century Rainford pipes were extensively traded across the areas now occupied by Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Lancashire and as far north into Cumbria as the southern Lakes. Although quite a long stem section survives, this only represents a proportion of the original pipe, with contemporary examples having stems ranging from around 6½" to 12½" in length (165-315mm; Higgins 1987, 64)."