The Pottery Cottages

Cream, grey, blue, yellow
Blue, turquoise, pink, green.
The pottery cottages stand in a row,
Pastel-painted and pristine.

Desirable Victorian houses now,
Workers’ cottages no more,
Comfortable middle-class families now,
Where potterymen lived before.

The pottery itself just a memory
Of Poole’s past industrial day,
A massive business last century
Making money from ordinary clay.

But gone now the kilns and the ovens,
The pits where they dug out the clay,
Gone are the barrows and wagons
The tank-engine and the tramway.

George Jennings achieved great fame
He made a fortune in his day
Now memorialised in street names:
Jennings Road and Potters Way.

But older houses still show his style
In architectural window mouldings,
Decorative details and fine ridge tiles,
Terracotta plaques on public buildings.

History can seem so long ago
If we rush about too fast
But the pottery cottages stand in a row,
Offering a reminder of our past.