Burleigh
David Nicholls learns more about pottery company Burleigh, founded in 1851 and known the world over for its patterned tableware
For as long as I can remember, there has been a real Little Engine That Could sense of hope in Stoke-on-Trent. 'I think I can, I think I can,' the Potteries have desperately chugged. The uphill struggle has been one for the survival of the ceramics industry, which has been in decline since the Seventies. Still, factories continued to close: Mintons in 1991, Royal Doulton in 2004, Aynsley in 2014. Companies were sold off or merged. Between 1998 and 2008, an estimated 20,000 jobs were lost. Of course, there were success stories, too: Emma Bridgewater, who founded her tableware company in the area in 1985 - one of the Potteries' darkest periods - is regularly held up as an example of how a well-managed business can still thrive in Britain's ceramic heartland. Yet I have often feared that proclamations of a 'Potteries revival' - including my own - have been largely based on the hopes of creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Have the Potteries finally run out of steam?
You would be given short shrift if you suggested this to the people of Burleigh, founded in 1851 and known the world over for its patterned tableware. There is an air of enthusiasm and confidence here, although that wasn't the case as recently as 2011. Burleigh, owned by Derbyshire-based Denby Holdings since 2010, looked as though it would have to move out of Middleport Pottery, the crumbling, unmodernised Victorian factory that had been its home for over a century. English Heritage identified it as a building at risk.
It was at this point that the Prince's Regeneration Trust, the Prince of Wales's conservation and preservation charity, stepped in with an audacious plan. It proposed to buy the Middleport Pottery site from Denby and restore it without interrupting production. It would then lease back 50 per cent of the facility to Denby for the continued making of Burleigh ware. Three years and £9 million after the deal was struck, the project was completed and is nothing short of brilliant.
What is most satisfying about the restoration is the degree of sensitivity shown. It hasn't been overdone; Middleport hasn't been Disney-fied. 'What we felt especially strongly about was that it should not feel like a "working museum",' says Ros Kerslake, chief executive of the Prince's Regeneration Trust.
Jemma Baskeyfield, who is Burleigh's historian and retail manager, grew up two streets away and recalls how secretive the area used to be. 'Because it was so competitive between the potteries, you wouldn't speak to someone from a different pottery at a trade fair - you'd be afraid you'd lose your job. No one knew what went on within these walls because there were no tours. Stoke-on-Trent was late in embracing industrial tourism.'
Burleigh has opened a two-floor shop, which sells its entire range. The Trust has opened a café overlooking the Trent and Mersey Canal, selling cappuccinos and delicious oatcakes - a local speciality. The spaces not occupied by Burleigh have been developed and are rented out as workshops, a gallery and a visitor centre.
Now, free factory tours snake around the site and visitor numbers have doubled an initial goal of 10,000 per year. The relatively unmechanised making process can be seen up close: each of the 2,000 or so pieces made here each day goes through 25 pairs of hands before it is finished.
Staff numbers in the factory have grown from 50 to 100 and one of the conditions of the Trust's lease-back agreement was that Burleigh must continue to operate using traditional skills. The Victorian underglaze tissue ceramic transfer technique of decoration, of which Burleigh claims to be the last practitioner in the world, is a completely handmade process.
Adding a flourish of gentle modernity is Burleigh's new creative director. Steven Moore, a ceramics expert, whom many will recognise from his TV appearances on Antiques Roadshow, has been brought on board to increase the company's relevance for the twenty-first-century home. 'I don't want to make antiques,' he says. 'I want us to make things that people will use and get rid of the things that they don't. Who uses a spoon tray? No one. You use a saucer. Spoon trays are made-up Seventies things to have when you're making spag bol.' He has been happily rolling up his sleeves and digging through Burleigh's immense archive of over 20,000 moulds, and reinstating pieces that catch his eye. Moustache mugs have been brought back into production, reflecting the renewed popularity of facial hair. Will hipsters start buying Burleigh?
Burleigh: 01773-740740; burleigh.co.uk
Taken from the January 2016 issue of House & Garden.
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