A bearded man like this one is found on a kind of pottery known as Bellarmine or Bartmann (meaning bearded man in German). This pottery was originally only made in western Germany and was popular across northern Europe.
In the 1970s, archaeologists uncovered a kiln near the Woolwich Ferry which is the first and so far the only known place in Britain to have made Bellarmine pottery. The person who made these jugs and pots in the second half of the seventeenth century may have been an immigrant from Germany. Employment has always attracted new people to our Borough.
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