Every region had its local style, and the more isolated the potteries, the more idiosyncratic their products. Sussex had boasted potteries with a distinct local character since the early 18th century, but by the end of the eighteenth century these potteries began to develop techniques that were unique to the area: namely, inlaying the russet-brown iron-flecked body with printers’ type and metal stamps of tiny stars or other shapes, all filled with white slip and carefully scraped clean. A version of this also spread across the Kent border in the early nineteenth century to High Halden in Kent, where red clay storage jars were decorated with fronds of foliage, gouged or impressed and filled with white slip. At Brede in Sussex, a particular style of decoration with bands of interlaced hoops of stars flourished in the 1790s, usually found on cylindrical tobacco jars or tea canisters. Inlaid wares were also made at East Grinstead, and from the 1790s at Chailey, where the potters developed the technique into an elaborate art form.
Taken from Robin HIldyard, English Pottery 1620-1840, V&A Publications, 2005