What Are The Old Smoking Pipes Called?

 Clay pipes were first used in Great Britain in the 16th century after tobacco was imported from America. The first tobacco pipes were made from terracotta and were mostly brought from northern Europe around the end of the sixteenth century. Long before sea foam and rose hips were used to make pipes, clay was the main material for making pipes. 

Pipes made from this material were originally meant to be made from clay, but nowadays the most common material is briar, although there are also quite a few churchwardens made from sea foam. Prior to briar pipes, the most popular materials were clay and any other hard wood such as cherry. Briar wood has been found to be the best material for smoking pipes due to fresh smoke quality and durability. Briar was discovered around 1850 and has been the most popular wood for pipe making ever since. 

Seafoam became an excellent substitute for the terracotta pipes of that era and remains popular to this day, although briar pipes have become the most common smoking pipes since the mid-1800s. Once upon a time, terracotta pipes were ubiquitous, often smoked in taverns, churches, and homes, and even after sea foam became available, many chose them because sea foam was expensive. Along with clay, sea foam was another common pipe material before briar was introduced as the material of choice in the mid-19th century. The use of briar, beginning in the early 1820s, greatly reduced the demand for terracotta and, to a lesser extent, marine foam pipes. 

Clay pipes were too brittle and broke easily, and pipes without briar smoked with the tobacco they smoked. The long pipes provided cooler smoke but also broke more easily and were therefore often thrown away after use. Even after clay pipes broke and could no longer be used for tobacco use, pieces of clay mouthpieces found alternative uses. It took until about the 1980s before clay pipes were no longer used in residential buildings, so some buildings built during this time may still have clay sewer pipes or another type of old pipe material. 

The life of clay pipes was relatively short in the 17th and 18th centuries, only a year or two before they were thrown away. Terracotta pipes have been smoked for centuries, and modern incarnations are almost identical to the earliest examples hundreds of years ago in materials used and production methods. Pipe bowls are usually made from rosehip, sea foam, cob, pear, rosewood, or clay. While there are promotional photos of Basil Rathbone smoking gourd pipes as the Great Detective for other projects, most notably his radio show, in his first two 20th Century-Fox productions as Holmes set in the Victorian era, Rathbone smoked an apple bowl. in the form of a black briar with a semicircle, manufactured by Dunhill, a company known for producing the finest pipes of the time.