nineteen hand-made decorative pipes, 18th and 19th Century, most complete and each with either a decorated bowl, or maker's stamp to the stem, or both, the mahogany and glass collector's counter-top cabinet with a fall front and working key,

The pipes in this cabinet are rare insofar as they are complete. Clay pipes were made to be ephemeral and consumable – they invariably broke and would be used in their shortened form until they were known as “nose-burners” and would be thrown away – which explains why the Thames foreshore in central London is littered with many thousands of clay pipes – the stem and the bowl – and they are all broken to be found by Mudlarks between the tides. This collection has not originated from the Thames mud.

There are some examples here from the 18th Century, possibly earlier. There are numerous inventive designs: humorous portrait heads, bird-claw-feet, footballers – and there’s a huge example too. Both the maker’s themselves and the Inns and Tobacconists that supplied the pipes would adopt their own peculiar designs encouraging brand loyalty.