Wenford Bridge Pottery
History and general information

Where the tiny stone bridge at Wenford crosses the River Camel there is a cluster of stone buildings set peacefully beside the river. First as a private, then public ale house The Wenford Inn had welcomed guests for over two hundred years. During the 1930s, Michael Cardew, a fourth generation Oxford scholar with an insatiable passion for ceramics, wanted to move his young family from Winchcombe in Gloucestershire to Cornwall "where the light was right". He purchased this idyllic holding beside the river and Wenford Inn became The Wenford Bridge Pottery. It was from here that Michael Cardew grew to become world famous potter, teacher and author.

The bridge at Wenford

The pottery

Front view of the main house

The first kiln on the present site of the pottery was built in 1939 by Michael Cardew with Michael Leach helping in the construction. It was an updraft kiln for galena glazes and was fired only a few times before the hostilities of W.W.II and the restrictions of the blackout called potting to a temporary halt.

Firing the Kiln at Wenford Bridge, 1941
Drapings around the kiln to block the light of the fire during periods of blackout

In 1950 the down-draft kiln was built and linked to the updraft kiln by an underground flue and some experimental stone ware firings were run by Ivan McMeekin, the Australian ceramist who worked at Wenford from 1950 to 1954. Continuing the Australian connection, Gwynne John (later Hansen-Piggott) produced some of her early work here before Cardew decided against allowing people to work at Wenford unsupervised and the pottery remained unused until he returned from West Africa in 1965.

Today, the pottery functions still in this quiet corner of England and remains a living tribute to its founder and to age old methods of pottery making which were revived there.

Stoneware clay is blended from local materials and ball milled on site; glazes and pigments are made in house; pots are hand thrown at traditional kick wheels then glazed and decorated by hand. The pots are then set in the huge circular down draft kiln built fifty years ago and wood fired to 1300.C.

The kiln

To experience and participate in pot-creating processes, students began seeking out Cardew as early as the 1950's and the learning tradition at Wenford had begun. Cardew attracted some future luminaries in the pottery world to come and work with him under his tuition; among them, Sven Bayer, Mark Hewitt, Todd Piker, Rupert Spira, Sam Uhlick, Miranda Thomas, Jane Herold. Teaching and overseeing pottery operations gradually passed to the next generation and under Seth Cardew's enthusiastic guidance, structured courses have evolved which currently run at scheduled times throughout the year along side pottery production. The pottery has become a recognised learning centre and receives students of greatly varying ability levels.

Front entrance to the kiln shed

Kiln shed entrance from the garden

Pots are sent to collectors and galleries while others remain to be sold from the pottery's own showroom. Although fully intended as functional pieces for everyday family use, Wenford pots have become valued for their lovely forms and are in numerous private collections as well as galleries and museums in Europe, Australia and America.

Show room

Thus ceramic enthusiasts come from every continent on earth; some to study, some to purchase and collect, others to observe the scale of the kiln or to investigate the museum and other historic aspects of the establishment. But for each, it is a seeking to nurture one's creative urge and in so doing, to drink in of what has come to be known as "the Wenford Experience."