For nearly two year, Poole Museum has been closed for refurbishment. A short while ago, after extensive renovations and improvements, it reopened to the public.
The museum include a wide range of exhibits relating to Poole’s history, but of particular interest to Poole Pottery fans is the large display of Poole Pottery. The display covers most of the last century of Poole Pottery and the Poole Room Blog has an excellent review for anyone who is interested.
Many of the pieces on display were bought by the local council at the 2004 auction of the former Poole Pottery factory archives – although what’s on offer here is only a fraction of that which could formerly be seen in Poole Pottery’s museum.
For anyone who’s in the area and fancies a look, current opening hours for the Poole Museum are:
- Monday – Saturday – 10am to 5pm
- Sunday – noon to 5pm
(From 21st March 2008 to 2nd November 2008)
Anyone who has been following the trials and tribulations of Poole Pottery over the last year may be interested to know that the pottery has just launched its new official collectors club.
The Poole Pottery Collectors Club is open to everyone and appears to be aimed at both collectors of older Poole and at fans of their newer work.
Membership of the club costs £30 for one or £45 for a couple and provides a number of benefits, including:
- Access to a directory of Poole Pottery marks and artists monograms
- News and articles relating to Poole Pottery
- Members’ magazine
- Discount on Poole Pottery books
You can learn more about the club and sign up on their website, www.poolepotterycollectorsclub.co.uk.
For some months now, www.poolepottery.co.uk has been sadly non-existent.
I’m pleased to report that this sorry state of affairs has now come to an end.
New Poole Pottery owners Lifestyle have now launched a very smart new website for the pottery, along with some new designs.
www.poolepottery.co.uk includes information about the pottery’s designers and decorators, an online shop and a section about upcoming new designs.
The items on sale in Poole’s online shop look suspiciously like designs that were being made before Lifestyle took over, but it will be interesting to see the new designs in the flesh. Some look like rehashed versions of older designs, but I quite like the look of the “African Sky” range.
Poole Pottery’s new owners Lifestyle have confirmed that the company will not be opening a new factory in Poole – under any circumstances. The company currently operates a shop and a small studio – with just four staff – in Poole, but all regular production has been moved to Stoke.
Lifestyle were always open about their plan to move the bulk of Poole Pottery production to their Stoke factory, but Poole fans and former staff had always hoped that there might be some future for volume production locally.
In this article in the Dorset Daily Echo, Lifestyle Managing Director Peter Bello reiterated the company’s position:
“We absolutely stick to what we said to the public, that the bulk of
production would move to Stoke-on-Trent, with the studio continuing
with product development and design and production of limited editions.”
The news will disappoint those hoping for a change of plan, but comes as no real surprise.
To be fair to Lifestyle, Poole Pottery was on a very poor footing prior to its closure and the company had been through more than one bankruptcy and change of ownership in the years preceding its demise.
Lifestyle has invested money in the company and preserved the Poole brand when all else seemed to have failed. A new range is due to be launched in 2008, which Lifestyle says was developed at the new Poole Studio, and Lifestyle have so far shown a firm commitment to turn the firm around.
Let’s hope they succeed – and that Poole Pottery doesn’t lose its unique identity in the process.
I’ve blogged about the demise of Poole Pottery before, and of the risk to the nearby Swan Inn – a wonderful example of architectural ceramics.
I came across this picture (click here) today which encapsulates what has happened perfectly – how can such a historic pub in this location (with loads of residential housing nearby) not be a viable business?
And why won’t the council support it as part of Poole’s heritage?
N.B. I believe the tiles were from the old Poole Pottery / Carter & Co. company, but am not certain of this. They certainly look right for Poole – especially those swans.
To learn more about the closure of Poole Pottery and what has happened to the company since it closed last December, click on the “Poole Pottery” tag below.
Following on from my last entry, Poole Council’s planners have seen sense and refused a planning application that would involve demolishing one of the last remaining tiled pubs and the Poole Pottery warehouse in order to build an apartment complex.
Planning officers had described the proposed scheme as “gross overdevelopment” of a conservation area and it seems that the town’s councillors agreed.
You can see full details of the latest on this story here.
(Reading between the lines, however, it seems that both pub and warehouse could still be demolished if a more suitable scheme comes along… time will tell)
Poole’s councillors are currently considering a plan to demolish not only the old Poole Pottery warehouse and shop (which, if we are honest, is a bit of an eyesore) but also the pictureseque Edwardian pub next to it, the Swan Inn. Right on the Quay, the Swan Inn is particularly noteworthy as it has one of the last remaining traditional tiled facades in Poole.
Developers want to demolish the two buildings to make way for yet another apartment/shop complex – a prospect not welcomed by most locals.
See the full story here, in the Dorset Echo.
I came across an interesting article today about Guy Sydenham, one of Poole’s best-known 20th century designers and head of design at Poole Pottery from 1966-1977. Particularly well-known for his Freeform designs, he also was responsible for the increasingly-popular Atlantis range, as well as much other work.
The commercial pressures of working at Poole eventually took their toll on him, and it was to his own studio that he retreated. A recent exhibition at the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester showcased a mixture of his own work and that from his time at Poole, and the Poole Room blog has an excellent write-up of the exhibition, including photos of some of the more unusual pieces that were on display.
It seems that the new owners of Poole Pottery will shortly be closing down Poole’s famous Sopers Lane factory, leaving the pottery without a new home. Their search for a new location seems more focused on finding retail space than manufacturing facilities – which makes sense now that it has been revealed that much of the manufacturing will be moved to Lifestyle’s other recent acquisition, Royal Stafford in Stoke.
More details in this article.
