Thanks to Clay Pipe Peter (Peter Hammond) I have discovered my clay tobacco pipe fragment "is a very unusual pipe", made by London pipemaker William Williams of Kent Street, Southwark, "an export pipe manufacturer whose pipes have been found in a number of places in the USA etc, normally marked in relief along the stem." Williams was also a founder member of the Bristol guild of pipe makers in 1652. It had 25 members, some of whom were apprentices, and four were women.
It is apparently one that Peter had not seen before. It is especially different with the twisted design on the stem, copying Dutch style pipes of the period, and seems to have had a very narrow bowl - again unusual. I would date it to 1840s rather than later.
thanks due to Smoke Pfeiffer and Peter Hammond, Membership Secretary/Treasurer of the Society for Clay Pipe Research.
