Lord Henry Pawlett granted a licence for one year to Christopher Merewether and Edward Fripp (see The Fripp Family/Chitterne People), both of Chitterne, to dig thirty loads of clay from the clay pits on Chitterne St Mary Down to make into tobacco pipes, they having paid him £10 for the licence, and to pay him eight gross of pipes to be delivered at The Angel in Andover.
According to Canner, "the hill called Clay Pits is the place where the best clay in England is to be found for the manufacturing of tobacco pipes." He further says that, "in the seventeenth century it was dug and carted to Amesbury and used by the firm of Gauntlett for the above purpose."
Fuller says, "the best for shape and colour are made at Amesbury. They may be called chimneys portable in pockets the one end being the hearth, the other the tunnel thereof. Gauntlett pipes which have the mark on the heel are best."