Landscape Magazine
Landscape Magazine were kind enough to interview one of us for a feature in their January/February 2016 issue.
 
Rye Pottery
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Since 1793
Since 1793
Landscape Magazine were kind enough to interview one of us for a feature in their January/February 2016 issue.
  
To celebrate Wild Boar Week in Rye, we have produced a limited edition run of our famous Sussex Pig – “The Sussex Boar”.
This new design has been hand-decorated in an exclusive colourway and the head features a unique pair of painted tusks. Each of this small batch will be numbered and signed by the paintress.
Extremely popular as both a collectors item and as a traditional Wedding present, Sussex Pigs have been hand-made in Rye for more than 200 hundred years.
We love Wild Boar Week and are expecting restaurants in Rye to come up with even more delicious dishes this year. So, to support this popular event we are offering one lucky person the chance to win a Sussex Boar by voting for their favourite dish via the contact form below.
The winner will be chosen at random on November 4th and will be contacted to arrange complimentary delivery of their prize, which retails at £46.50. A great opportunity for collectors to own a really rare piece of Rye Pottery! All you have to do is come to Rye and choose where to eat…
To see more of the planned menus & other events coming up during Wild Boar week visit www.wildboar.org.uk
To tell us your favourite dish from Wild Boar Week in Rye – fill in the contact form below.
Please be sure tell us the tastiest dish and importantly at which Rye restaurant you enjoyed it – the restaurant with the most votes will receive a certificate from Wild Boar Week organisers.
The competition is now closed. 
Now nearly the end of April and we’re still very busy hand-crafting, painting and packing our Sussex Pigs. We have been thrilled to find ourselves mailing our charming traditional Sussex wedding presents all over the country – and indeed the world – since our appearance on the BBC’s Flog It Trade Secrets back in February.
We’ve also been delighted by how many Sussex and Kent residents spotted Quin’s television appearance, and have snapped up pigs for their own mantlepieces or to give to friends and family for weddings and anniversaries. It’s been wonderful to have so many people so keen to support a 200 year-old tradition and a ceramics firm that still decorates AND produces in Britain.
Obviously the idea of one as a wedding present instead of a real live pig has reminded us all of the more rural and leisured way of life in the 18th century – though no doubt we’d all have been thrilled to be given a real pig 200 years ago.
In our Sussex Pig archive files we have some black and white pictures of two early 19th century Sussex pigs that are owned by the Museum at Williamsburg Virginia; unfortunately when visiting ourselves, the curator on the day was unable to tell us how they had acquired their pigs. So if any of our collecors on the other side of the pond ever visit the museum and can find out more we’d love to know.
Back in Rye it’s wonderful to still be talking to customers every day who spotted our appearance on the Beeb. Many of them it seems have been waiting for the good weather so they can not only visit us, but enjoy a full day in Rye, not least lunch in one of the many great places to eat here.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
Click here for more information about our Sussex Pigs
 
Paul Martin with Tarquin Cole
In a new series on BBC2, Flog It Trade Secrets‘ presenter Paul Martin has been revealing the tricks of the trade and surprising things he has learned over his 11 years in television.
Rye Pottery was pleased to be picked for inclusion in the latest programme, which was a touching tribute to the late antiques expert David Barby who died in July 2012, and was a pioneering television antiques expert, not least on Flog It. In the programme presenter Paul reveals: “I didn’t know a great deal about Ceramics [when I started in television], but what I do know now, David taught me”. It was because of David that Paul says he was first introduced to Rye Pottery.
Interviewing Rye Pottery’s Tarquin Cole, Paul discusses the heritage, value and collectability of Sussex and Rye Pottery, not least Hopware, Sussex Pigs, and our Mid-Century Modern classics, contemporary versions of which are still produced by us today. Tarquin took over Rye Pottery from his father Wally Cole MBE in 1978 and is widely regarded as an expert in valuing and dating early Sussex Pottery.
In the programme Paul also discusses Rye Pottery’s 
Mid-Century”Cottage Stripe” pattern, which has been in constant production since 1950. Examples of this design are included in the Ceramics Collections of both the V&A and the British Museum’s Museum of the Home. Finally Paul braves an attempt at painting another of Rye Pottery’s pigs himself – one of our Sows! We use a very difficult technique that our accomplished paintresses spend years mastering, as the glaze has only just been applied and the slightest touch of a finger or too heavy a brush and the piece can be ruined.
Flog It Trade Secrets featuring Rye Pottery aired on February 15th 2013 at 18.30 on BBC 2. You can watch the film on the BBC’s iplayer by clicking this link. The section about Rye Pottery starts at 42.15 and ends at 48.07.
Click the following link to see Rye Pottery’s current ranges
 
Vintage Sussex Pigs
Today (31st October 2011) Tarquin has been asked to help identify an early 20thcentury “Sussex Pig” for a collector, but the consensus from all the local experts was that it was nothing to do with Rye. Too many things did not match up, colour of the glaze, the lettering technique and of course no basemark at all. It looked as if it was cast from a mould so beware there could be more about!
Note to the wary: Pre war Sussex Pigs were all thrown by hand & not made in a mould.
Here at Rye Pottery we do not reproduce pre-war pieces and any post-war designs we do introduce always have our current Rye Pottery mark, or “back stamp” as we call it in the trade, to make sure there can be no confusion.
>> We hope one day to add more about the various marks used to identify Rye Pottery in the future, but in the meantime, click here to find out how our backstamp and initialling systems work – both now and in years past.
 
