Rye Pottery

Still May… and a bit of a rant!

I accept that Rye can be no exception to multiple road works, but it still seems quite amazing that so many of our approach roads are bedevilled by  traffic lights, half dug-up on one side with just 2 men standing by, or even more often, NO traffic lights, NO workmen in sight only a large coned off area - no doubt waiting for the next part of the team to come along and do something else.

We are also still struggling with the occasional rogue days when the train is replaced by the BUS as there are still problems somewhere along our tiny, pretty branch line from Ashford to Hastings. The problems caused by these hold ups are endless and Do not go away when the road eventually re -opens.

Visitors to Rye need to know that they will be able to have a relatively trouble free trip and not find themselves, if in a car, followng rather poorly signed diversions along extremely muddy small lanes. It does not help US visitors who have  chosen a self drive  holiday; brave  Americans arrive in our shop  after a day spent trying to follow our idiosyncratic road signage. Rye also has a new trick, which is to use the Brown tourist signs to guide the unsuspecting visitor in search of the Tourist Office or the Church away from the town and send them en route to Battle instead – a mere 12 miles away- we say to all prospective visitors to Rye ~  DO stick with it and come and see us, we are all open and look forward to meeting you!

News round up

Although this seemingly endless rain has prevented some of the regular April visitors from making the dash from London to Rye this year, we have been very pleased to receve a great many compliments from all the ones who have braved the April showers.  So many people seem surprised that we have managed to avoid using the standard Royal photograph as  decoration on our Jubilee Pottery, instead we have continued working with images from our very good collection of Royal  Heraldry artwork to produce a souvenir that people really appreciate. We have let one customer down though, she really wanted a thimble and somehow Rye has never trodden the souvenir thimble path!

We have struggled to find out exactly how Rye Town plans to spend the Jubilee week end, but so far have found a rather large hole in the information available; however I am sure something will be happening then, and  in the meantime we have looked out our Union Jack flag   so it will be ready to fly from our flagpole on June 2.

Finally I must apologise to the people who write to us hoping for information about  items of pottery produced over the past 60 years by the other potteries in Rye- now ALL CLOSED.  We try to give you any information we do have, but as they were all separate businesses,  albeit mainly opened by ex- employees of Rye Pottery, I am afraid it means  that we have only a limited amount of  hard facts at our disposal.

MARCH 1

What excitement! Not only is March 1 St David’s Day ~always a very special day in my life as I spent my childhood in a village in North Wales;  but even more importantly for Rye Pottery,  I have also discovered that  March 1st  1360  is the day that  King Edward 111 paid £ 16 ransom to free a young Geoffrey Chaucer then fighting  as a  soldier in France during the Siege of Rheims. It is difficult to imagine what English Literature would have been like today without the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer, so we should all be grateful to King Edward for paying off this ransom so early in his career .

DIAMOND JUBILEE UDATE -  We are gradually building up a small quantity of stock of our smaller Jubilee pieces, but it is good news to see how quickly things are selling as soon as we put some on display ~ GOD SAVE THE QUEEN!

Even more Diamond Jubilee.

Finally Betty Sayer  having printed up a  folder full of transfers  will apply the transfers carefully, including the Rye Pottery backstamp and it is ready for the final firing in the  kiln.  So as you will appreciate  we really do sell a Diamond Jubilee  Tankard which is both hand made and hand decorated here in Rye.

DIAMOND JUBILEE

HAND PAINTED DIAMOND JUBILEE PLATE

Although the first week end of June will be the time for the  main Diamond Jubilee celebrations, February 6th is the actual date of Her Majesty’s accession in 1952.  We have been working hard to have some special pieces ready, we had already sold our first handpainted plate sample to a regular customer who is involved in various civic celebrations, fortunately we have painted a  few more which we have now fired!

We are planning to  have a display in our shop  of some of our Commemorative Jubilee pottery which we will hope to change as and when  new pieces appear!  Our current problem is that somehow we have managed to only put one of the 2 relevant dates on the first trial batch of little tankards. At least this is a fault we can easily put right,  just need to stay awake while putting the transfer onto the tankard;  unlike the plate we painted for the Queen and Prince Philip’s Silver Wedding in 1972 when we managed to write PRICNCE (sic) instead of prince and did not notice it until it was fired and ready to go on display!

STOP PRESS  correctly dated tankards with the right dates just  starting to come through the system.

Rye Pottery gears up to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

This year we are, in total contrast to last year’s Royal Wedding, all geared up and raring to go with new Rye Pottery designs to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

We have planned and painted a sample of our hand-painted large plate, as well as designing the artwork for the much-loved little transfer tankards and small dishes.  We hope to add some one-off pots throughout the next 6 months, which will be sold on a strictly first come first served basis.

Rye Pottery have produced Royal Commemoratives for over 100 years. Hastings Museum has a 1902 jug made for Edward VII  and we’ve also seen trials and drawings for an Edward VIII 1936 mug designed by Robert “Bobby” Baker (later Professor of Ceramics at the Royal College of Art while Tarquin was a student) who before WW2 was working for Rural Industries.

The post-war Cole dynasty at Rye Pottery made tankards and dishes for the 1953 Coronation and have never looked back, producing special designs for each succeeding Royal event. We even printed 2 miles of 6 inch square tiles during the 1981 Royal Wedding celebrations.

Recently we bought two lovely Royal pieces on ebay, one of which, a Wally Cole design, may be a one-off. (See picture to the left)

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Noticed in the papers.

Last week we were saddened but interested to see an obituary of cartoonist Ronald Searle that used a photograph of him standing in his studio. Just behind him was a lovely 50s Rye Pottery Jug holding his paint brushes.

(You can see the picture here).

Spotting the Rye Pot is always a fun game – they seem to come up in Midsomer Murders frequently, though so far no piece has been the actual murder weapon!

Last week was also the anniversary of the death of Edward the Confessor in 1066 and the accession to the English throne of  Harold the following day; so much for his promises to William, perhaps like many politicians the opportunity  of holding  power made it worthwhile jettisoning his principles.

For the next 9 weeks the railway from Ashford  to Hastings via Rye  will be closed for major repairs, so if you are visiting Rye  it  will be simpler to travel by car until the end of March.

A new year and some old friends.

The  Christmas decorations are  now all put away until next December, while we   work our way through some large boxes of samples which had been stored away when we were moving out of the Ferry Road site 5 years ago this month. We have found several figures in different colourways, some of which we may decide to repeat, as well as some very early lamp bases with charming hand painted  designs  which  we may copy onto some other shapes.    Meanwhile we wish all our  collectors a very happy and healthy 2012 and we look forward to hearing from you and hopefully seeing some of you during the coming year.

Christmas and New Year!

Small engraved Christmas dish by Wally Cole c 1960

So we have finally arrived,  last parcels sent off  and  last kiln fired! Our shop will be open until 3.00pm on  Friday December 23rd and then we are closed until Tuesday January 3rd.

We  would like to thank all our Rye enthusiasts for continuing to support us,  and we wish you all, wherever you are in the world, a happy and enjoyable Christmas and a healthy and peaceful 2012.

Wedding anniversaries!

The Prince Regent or Prinny as he was sometimes known

Mrs Fitzherbert

 

Years ago we were asked by Brighton Pavilion to produce a pair of Regency figures based on some of their wonderfully vicious James Gillray cartoons.

One of the figures was The Prince Regent and the other was Maria Fitzherbert.  Their unrecognised morganatic marriage took place on 15th December 1785, but sadly, despite his genuine love for her, his increasing debts and extravagance meant  he had to to agree to King George III’s terms and in 1795  he  married his cousin Princess Caroline of Brunswick.  This  royal alliance was  a disaster from day one, resulting in an official separation a year later, and producing such dislike on both sides that as George IV in 1820 he even  forbade her admittance to his Coronation.

>> You can find out more about them both by clicking this link which will take you to the Royal Pavilion’s website.