Plate, fluted, 8.5 inches diameter. Brown transfer with polychrome clobbering. Printed maker's mark for Ford & Riley. The Rd. number dates the pattern registration to 1884. This pattern features cartouches (one fan-shaped with a rustic cottage and another square with a large sailing vessel); a large vase filled with flowers and a spider web; a small duck swimming in a small pond with irises; a bird in flight and another perched in the flowers in the vase. Unusually, the pattern name seems to be tied directly to the pattern image. The fan-shaped cartouche is labeled as the “Birthplace of Burns,” the Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759-1796). Burns was born in Alloway, Ayrshire. Kyle is derived from the Scottish Gaelic surname Kyle, which is itself from a region in Ayrshire. In Scottish Gaelic, kyle, or caol, means narrows or strait.

Whittingham, Ford & Co. began at the High Street Potteries of Burslem, Staffordshire, England, and operated from 1868 to 1873. In 1876, the company moved to its eventual permanent home at Newcastle Street, Burslem, operating under the name Whittingham, Ford & Riley. From 1882 to 1893, the growing company took the name Ford & Riley, then Ford & Sons from 1893 to 1908, with the Ltd. designation added in 1908, and continuing until 1938.