Rye Pottery
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Since 1793
Since 1793
Design Heritage CraftsmanshipRye Pottery is a contemporary design-led company in Sussex, England. Originally established in the late 1700’s, we’re a family-owned business producing unique hand-made tiles, homewares & decorative accessories.
We’re a classic artisan production business – a fusion of high art, design & expert craftsmanship. All our Collections are conceived, designed and modelled by an expert team of sculptors, decorators and ceramicists, with a clutch of Design Awards and MBEs behind them. Once a design enters production, pieces are reproduced individually by our highly-skilled team here in Sussex.
Rye Pottery is one of just of a handful of production potteries left in the world that continues to produce everything by hand, using a 17th Century decorating technique, known variously as Faience, Majolica or Delft. In our Sussex workshops, each piece undergoes a minimum of 12 hand processes before reaching the finished state. At the heart of this process is the freehand brushwork demonstrated by our talented painting team.
This increasingly rare production style, combined with our beautiful colour palette and sculptural shapes create a look that is quintessentially Rye Pottery.
Our timeless technique lends itself to everything from our modern tableware & homewares, to the elegance of our 18th century figures and English animals & Birds and the medieval feel of the Canterbury Tales or The Bayeux Tapestry 1066 collections. Our celebrated Mid-Century pieces are still much sought-after today but past pieces are also part of the Ceramics Collections of the V&A as well as the British Museum’s “Museum of the Home”, formerly known as The Geffrye Museum. Many of the shapes from the 50s and 60s have made a celebrated return in recent years combining classic sculptural forms with updated contemporary decorations. Click here to take a look.
Follow this link for more detail about our techniques and how many of our pots are made.
Run by just three families for over 200 years, our own family Cole re-opened Rye Pottery in the beautiful medieval town of Rye after WW2 in 1947. Currently run by the third generation of Coles – Josh & Tabby – classic style, timeless design and a demand for quality continue to be at the heart of every piece produced.
If you visit our showroom in the centre of Rye, England, you’ll discover the entire Collection alongside occasional “seconds”, samples and a variety of one-off studio pieces. You can also see some of our talented decorating team at work first hand.
We sell direct and ship worldwide so our mail-order skills are finely honed – we don’t bat an eyelid at sending any of our delicate pieces to our collectors across the globe!
So, do please call us on +44 (0)1797 223038 or email sales@ryepottery.co.uk if you have any queries or would like to buy a piece.