page_title: Tobacco pipe
section_title: Clay
hierarchical_section_title: Tobacco pipe / Typology / Bowl materials / Clay
caption_attribution_description: English: A group of clay pipes, from the early 17th to late 19th century, on display in Bedford Museum.
context_page_description: A tobacco pipe, often called simply a pipe, is a device specifically made to smoke tobacco. It comprises a chamber for the tobacco from which a thin hollow stem emerges, ending in a mouthpiece. Pipes can range from very simple machine-made briar models to highly prized hand-made artisanal implements made by renowned pipemakers, which are often very expensive collector's items. Pipe smoking is the oldest known traditional form of tobacco smoking.
context_section_description: Ceramic pipes, made of moulded and then fired clay, were used almost universally by Europeans between the introduction of tobacco in the 16th century, and the introduction of cheap cigarettes at the end of the nineteenth.
  The material is not very strong and the early varieties had long thin stems, so they frequently broke, but were cheap to replace. It has been claimed that this fragility was somewhat intentional as it was utilized by Colonial American tavern keepers, for example, in renting the clay pipes to patrons. When the patron was done smoking the pipe and returned it to the keeper, the end of the stem was simply broken off so as to be ready for the next patron. However, there is no documentary evidence for this practice; it is known that communal pipes used in taverns were cleansed by being heated in an oven on special iron racks.
  Forming the pipe involved making them in moulds with the bore created by pushing an oiled wire inside the stem. The preferred material was pipeclay or "tobacco pipe clay", which fires to a white colour and is found in only certain locations. In North America, many clay pipes were historically made from more typical terracotta-coloured clays. According to one British writer in 1869, the French preferred old pipes and the English new, the middle class preferred long stems and the working class preferred short. Short stemmed pipes, sometimes called cuttys or nose warmers in England, were preferred by those doing manual work as they could be gripped between the teeth, leaving both of the smoker's hands free.
  Later low-quality clay pipes were made by slip casting in a mould. Higher quality pipes are made in a labour-intensive hand shaping process. Traditionally, clay pipes are un-glazed. Clays burn "hot" in comparison to other types of pipes, so they are often difficult for most pipe-smokers to use. Their proponents claim that, unlike other materials, a well-made clay pipe gives a "pure" smoke with no flavour addition from the pipe bowl. In addition to aficionados, reproductions of historical clay styles are used by some historical re-enactors. Clay pipes were once very popular in Ireland, where they were called
  dudeens.
  Broken fragments of clay pipe can be useful as dating evidence for archaeologists. In the 1950s, the American archaeologist J. C. Harrington noted that the bore of pipe stems decreased over time, so a late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries pipe would have a stem bore diameter of around ⁹⁄₆₄ inch (3.6 mm), but a late eighteenth century pipe would have a bore diameter of around ⁴⁄₆₄ inch (1.6 mm). The size of bowls also increased over time as tobacco became a cheaper commodity, and later pipes tend to be more decorated.
caption: A group of English clay pipes, from the early 17th to late 19th century, none complete, Bedford Museum, 2010
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