Nailsea Glass and the Original Factory

Have you any information about the Nailsea Glass Makers’ Guild? It is mentioned in the Connoisseur, 1911, vol. XXX no.118, in an article by Harold St George Gray on Nailsea Glass. He also says that the Glass Makers’ Arms was actually demolished. His account of the history of the company was well-researched and was largely illustrated from a collection of a Mrs Challicombe of Clevedon. Do you know what became of her collection?

I have a piece of glass that I’m told is Nailsea. It is a scent bottle I’m told. My father who learnt to glass blow and was interested in glass told me that he had found it in the sands on new Brighton beach. I was told it was just made from the old bits of left over glass and of no value -at the most about £50 . -after reading all your comments I’m now quite interested in the glass.
Liz

Hello,
I am going through memoirs of my Grandmother and came across this passage;

“I also remember very vividly, three men entering the front drive with sacks and they proceeded to turn over all the stones in Mother’s rockery at the top of the lawn – near a huge walnut tree. They had come from the Midlands or Nailsea to that area – all limestone in the Mendips – to gather the huge snails which lived under the stones. They said the glassblowers ate them (Nailsea conkers). Mother was furious to find, after they had left, that none of the stones had been put back in position and some of her favourite plants had been uprooted.”

This would have been somewhere between 1895 and 1910.

I am interested in any accounts of nailsea glassblowers. Anthony Anderson’s grandmothers memoir of the nailsea conkers (snails) is interesting and also marie comer’s, Yvonne jaynes and sue Taylor’s ancestors who worked in the glassworks too. If any of these people wish to contact me please email katelynchartist@gmail.com. Thanks. Kate

My wife’s family were glassmakers in Bristol and Nailsea. The family were named Groves and worked in many glasshouses in England and Scotland.

Hi there,

Me and my husband are hoping to buy a house in Nailsea that was located on part of the land formerly owned by the Glassworks; I say “hope” because you never know. Either way we’ll be purchasing a property in Nailsea as that is where we want to settle (My husband is originally from Bristol, but lived in Nottingham most of his adult life – we met and where I’m from – and moved to Bristol in late 2019. Due to the pandemic our house searching was trampled on for a while, however we did consider moving further afield than Bristol in the time we’ve had to ponder it all; and we landed on Nailsea very quickly and easily. SO, what is my point? I knew nothing about Nailsea until we drove in to it to first have drive-by peeks at houses for sale. Now I have a need (obsession my husband might say) to know absolutely everything about a place, which goes in to overdrive if I’m going to be spending more than a few hundred (thousand!) on a piece of land. I need to know everything there is to possibly know (Ancient burial ground? How did it come to be? Neighbour disputes? Planning permissions? Special or notable considerations……. Honestly, I bore my husband senseless digging up information! By this point my husband had mentioned Nailsea was famous for it’s old Glassworks, but I’d somewhat dismissed this as an unimportant event because there was no obvious sign of anything relating to a glassworks – I didn’t notice the simple statue as we drove in to Tesco carpark the first time, no. So the offer is accepted (to date we’re still in a never ending chain so I’m not stating anything is definitive until we sign and get those keys) so, here begins my journey in to the history (note it was never any sort of basis in our decision to offer on the house because we knew little to nothing – I wonder if the neighbours have any idea the level of detail I do about the history of the land… If we get in, I’ll bore them to TEARS 😉

Never in my wildest dreams could I have unearthed such a rich and interesting history of the soil we hope to own sometime soon (Just to further note – I would have found out all about the Glassworks regardless of whether the house was situated on the land or somewhere else in Nailsea, I only found out it was during my research).

I now know everything that happened on that piece of earth traced back to when it was merely a field. I started with the build date and finding out who built them. I’ve seen every single digitalised record relating to the development of the houses available (even a neighbour across the road’s wanting to alter the roof of his conservatory and the dispute around boundary wall that never seems to have been resolved – I’m methodical!), then rolls in the legal documentation relating to the house and the real fun begins…. now I have names and dates I didn’t know before. I should probably mention I’ve studied Law, so my husband happily throws such items my way because of this… but he’s come to realise my ability comes from obsession.

If I have a sleepless night and he wakes to find me on the laptop, you can see the roll of his eyes as he waits for my “Oooooh, here’s an interesting fact…..” relating to the house, Nailsea or the Glassworks.

I won’t preach to the choir as I’m amongst friends of a shared interest, but needless to say it didn’t take long for my curiosity in the bit of planet we are hoping to buy, to decent in to an absolute NEED to try and obtain an original Nailsea Glassworks piece to live pride of place on the dining room table for when we do eventually live there.

And of course, just like anything pricey, I don’t go buying expensive glasswear without being pretty certain I know everything I can possibly know. Problem is, then when you see one…. You have to have it!

And yes, I know no Nailsea Glass can be absolutely verified as originating from the Nailsea glassworks, but I know as much as anyone could possibly know, that they’re as close to “verified” as they ever could be before purchasing.

My husband wants to wait until we move (if we do) to the new house, but I managed to convince him that a speckled Nailsea Carafe could be an early anniversary present to me…. I’ll unveil the green glass white looped decanter, the divine red and blue looped flask, and the 18th century water bottle when we get in there….. If he doesn’t leave me before then after discovering my hidden treasures!

Well, all being well we’ll be moving to Nailsea soon, hopefully in the house we’re waiting on, and I’ll be bringing at least 4 Nailsea glasswork originals (as likely as possible they are) back to their bithplace. I’ll probably have a few more by then….. Oooops.

Random but perhaps interesting fact relating to the Chance Brothers definitely being responsible for ensuring that Nailsea Glassworks would never be resurrected – It states as part of the property acquisition on Land Registry and deeds that we are prohibited from producing any kind of glassware on the land with the exception of bottles, as agreed with the Chance brothers when eventually and I believe this restriction still applies today.
My husband seemed quite happy with that restriction… Perhaps I should lay off educating him about the Glassworks and the latest rare Nailsea original piece I’ve found and just “Have to have….!”

These so called nailsea glass flask are found in the Harrach depository .. they are Bohemian swirled glass flask. I’m not sure many people know this.