ENGLISH POTTERY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 24 March 1928, Page 11

ENGLISH POTTERY

TTOWEVER industrialised the British countryside may become, there are a few trades which will never be crafts. Pottery is a good example of this, in English rural districts there ar c still potteries w'here the methods are those of 100 and even .200 years ago; but a movement is afoot to apply .modern methods to the problems of production without allowing the old design's to ■fall into disuse. At present there is a stage of transition, and examples of ■the old and the new are t'o he found within comparatively e'asy distance of each other. 1 In Dorset, at the Vcrwood, there is a pottery where work is carried on under tlip identical conditions which prevailed 200 years ago. The ic'lay is prepared for the wheel by treading it with the feet, and the wheels are turned by hand. .Tug handles are fixed upon the jugs by hand, and the craftsmen at Vcrwood arc among the most highly skilled potters in England. Then there is the Winchcombe pottery, in Gloucestershire, where Michael Cardew, the artist-potter, is attempting to make useful pottery for modern purposes, on the shme technical lines as the old slipwarc tradition. His potter’s wheel is hand-turned, and before he took over the pottery it had been in the hands of one family for the best part of " 100 voars; the secrets of “throwing” be’iiig handed down from father to son. The Leach pottery, at .St. Ives, is yet another example 'of an attempt to .perpetuate the art of a bygone age, though in this ease Bernard Leach is reproducing the art of China and Korea in his special wood-fired kiln. These interesting survivals of the past have .prompted others to see what they can do to extend work of the sanie kind, and so check the drift from

CHANGE TO MODERN METHODS

country to town which s'o often leads to the production of slums. At Totnes an electric furnace has recently been installed for firing. Perhaps the most noteworthy experiment, and one, moreover, which is standing the test, of time, is that which Was inaugurated, by the Lady Weaver and her husband, jSir Lawrenlce Weaver. Partly .with the idea of forwarding the cause of village industries in general but chiefly to provide a pleasant occupation for men Whom the war had left incapacitated to follow their pre-war occupations, they started the Ash'tead Potteries, at Ashtead, in one of the prettiest part's of Surrey. 'Here over 40 workers carry out the whole process of pottery from design to painting, and the type of pottery evolved has a distinctive note which is becoming known. A specimen of the ware has had the honour to be placed in the collection at South Kensington. Unlike most village industries, the Ashtead pottery hag the advantage of being able to ‘use cleletric power, and the machines are driven by motors —in fact, this advantage was one of the chief reasons which led to the inception of the industry in this particular spot. It has been mentioned that this pottery Is now flourishing, and it should bo ‘ explained that this is largely because the designers and painters at Ashtead are frequently in the Victoria and Albert Museum, where they go to get the atmosphere of the past, that their designs may be moulded on traditional shapes. ” Electricity is here shown as a means whereby men may get their livelihood in the peaceful environment of fiTTe country, instead of beino- forced t'o submit to the cramped conditions of existence in a twentieth century industrial area.