Vessels in this ware started to be made in Aberdeen in the late 14th or 15th century. Vessels made in this fabric were clearly created in the same tradition as the earlier medieval examples out of the same clays, but they demonstrate a greater degree of control over the finishing and firing of the product. The fabric, particularly of the jugs, is finer than many of its predecessors, resulting in a smoother surface; it is quite hard, but without being brittle, and is capable of being thrown into larger forms without the addition of large amounts of extra temper. The finished surface colours are more consistently buff to orange. A small number of sherds of this fabric were recovered from this excavation.
The pottery assemblage from 17th and 18th century contexts at the site was dominated by residual medieval material; but, if this is excluded, local EPM and GRE fabrics are clearly in the majority. EPM and GRE wares were identified on the 18 Castle Street (Albion Court) site, and were described in that report, where Fabric 9 (Murray 1982, 119) has been renamed Glazed Red Earthenware (Evans 1986, 285). At present, these fabrics cannot be demonstrated to be any earlier than the 17th century. Because the production techniques of this type of pottery became standardised, it is possible that sherds identified as Glazed Red Earthenwares (GRE) or Early Post-Medieval (EPM) from this site may in fact come from further afield than Aberdeen. At 45-75 Gallowgate, for example, GRE and EPM fabrics appears in Phase 4a in the 17th century, and continues to be present throughout the 18th century. These fabrics are present in late 17th and early 18th-century levels on the Castle Terrace and Albion Court sites (Evans 1986, 285ff). The only lid found at this site was in a GRE fabric [2075].
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