“Butter-pots are mentioned in the parochial records of the town forty years before Dr. Plot wrote; for five pots of butter were sent from Uttoxeter to the garrison of Tutbury Castle, and had been bought at the sum of 12_s._ As this was seventeen years before the Act of Parliament for the regulation of the sale of butter in pots, it is difficult from this to judge of the exact price of butter per pound at Uttoxeter at that remote period. And yet it may be reasonably inferred that the pots of 1644 were of the size of those manufactured after 1661; for it appears the Act was passed more for the prevention of any irregularity in the size of the pots, and the mode of packing butter in them, than for any actual alteration of the size the pots were understood to be. If so, butter then at Uttoxeter was worth but about twopence a pound, supposing the five pots of butter sent to Tutbury, costing 12_s._, contained fourteen pounds of butter each. About fifty years before butter was retailed throughout the kingdom at sevenpence per pound; but this was regarded as an enormous price, which, Stowe says, ‘was a judgment for their sins.’ It is highly probable, therefore, that the pots contained fourteen pounds of butter, which consequently was twopence per pound at Uttoxeter when the five pots were bought, especially as it corresponds with the price of cheese at that time in the town, as to which the old parochial accounts have preserved very distinct information, the sum of £7 15_s._ 10_d._ having been paid for 8 cwt. 2 qrs. 7 lbs., which was also for the besieged at Tutbury.” The following extracts from the churchwardens’ accounts of Uttoxeter illustrate this subject:-- £ _s.__d._ 1644. May 7. For 8 cwt. 2 qrs. 7 lb. of cheese to Tutbury 7 15 10 For 5 _potts of butter_ to ditto 0 12 0 1645. June 25. Bread, beer, cheese, _a pott of butter_, and a flitch of bacon, for Lieut.-Col. Watson’s men quartered at Blunts Hall 2 5 6 The butter pots were tall cylindrical vessels, of coarse clay, and very imperfectly baked. They are now of great rarity, but specimens may be seen in the Hanley Museum and in the Museum of Practical Geology. Their form will be seen in Fig. 316. It is worthy of remark that even yet, as it was in Shaw’s days, Irish or Dutch butter, which is generally imported in casks, and is in most places known as “tub butter,” is, in the potteries, usually called “pot butter.” [Illustration: Fig. 316.--Butter Pots.]