Perfect Pieces Specialists in British Pottery

I recently came across these photos of the Maling Ford B Pottery on the excellent “Photographs of Newcastle” blog.

Maling’s Ford B pottery was established in 1878 - and was one of the largest, most modern potteries in the UK. Highly mechanised for its time, it provided relatively good working conditions for its workers at a time when this was rarely an employer’s top priority.

C. T. Maling invested more than £100,000 in the Ford B Pottery - a sizeable sum in 1878 - and it dwarfed its predecessor, the nearby Ford A Pottery. Ford B had 10 kilns, employed over 1,000 ‘hands’ and was completely self sufficient - from flint mill to onsite railway sidings. The Ford B site was to remain Maling’s home until the company closed in 1963 - by this time under the ownership of Hoults, a furniture removals company.

Today, the buildings still stand and indeed still bear the Hoults name - It’s interesting to see that Hoults still operate the site, which looks relatively unchanged and benefits from what is probably a very valuable location near Newcastle’s city centre.

Perfect Pieces is in the press again - in the current (July/August) issue of Antiques Info magazine with a feature on collecting Maling pottery.

If you’re interested in the Tyneside pottery, then you might want to take a look. The article has a huge selection of photos (with sale prices) taken from Antique Info’s auction result database, as well as useful tips on collecting Maling pottery.

Now is a good time to buy Maling, as prices are generally quite subdued - meaning that even the best 1920s pieces can be picked up for fairly reasonable amounts.