Entries by Peter Arscott

The Patron Saint of potters

November 25th, 2019 in , /by

It must have been hard for Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby living in Plas Newydd, a stone built house converted into a gothic ‘fantasy’, since all they wanted was to be left alone after running away from their families and setting up home in Wales in 1778. They lived there for 50 years […]

Arscott Ceramics goes pannaging

October 5th, 2019 in , /by

“If you’re given champagne at lunch, there’s a catch somewhere”, said one of the great diplomats of 19th century Britain, Lord Lyons, a man who loved gastronomy and agreed with Palmerston’s remark that ‘dining is the soul of diplomacy’, and offered at least five courses of Moet & Chandon champagne at his diplomatic dinners because […]

Arscott’s ceramic wanderings

May 18th, 2019 in , /by

I found myself wandering about in the grounds of a ruined castle, somewhere near the Welsh border, probably Skenfrith, or White Castle, when I came upon an open enclosure, the portcullis and dry moat lay ahead and the grassy area was walled in and contained a massive oak tree. But what most intrigued me a […]

A Stoneware Wolf in a China Shop

April 13th, 2019 in , /by

Delivering ceramics is a way to get to know a country. I found myself in the car, ceramic pieces carefully packed in boxes at the back, on a narrow road in the Welsh countryside of Powys, marooned in a sea of wool as a flock of sheep was driven to an adjacent field by two […]

Worcester’s ceramics, swans and sauce.

March 29th, 2019 in , /by

You would not normally associate the city of Worcester (pronounced Wuster) with the pong of rotting fish and other ingredients, but it is thanks to a certain Lord Sandys in the 1830s that two local chemists, John Wheeley Lea and William Henry Perrins were approached  and paid to come up with an anchovy-based sauce that […]

Ledbury (part 2)

February 27th, 2019 in , /by

What is the difference between pottery and poetry, other than the extra “t”? I don’t know, though I could go on about how playing with clay, twisting it into shapes, applying glazes in a particular way, to make an object “speak” so that it is more than the sum of its various parts, is not […]

pottery/ poetry in Wales

January 22nd, 2019 in , /by

Driving through the countryside in Herefordshire and then on to Wales is a captivating experience. Perhaps it is the winding roads and the rising and falling of the horizon as you make your way past meadows, hills and then mountains. Small hamlets, castles in ruins, the occasional farmhouse, all punctuate the drive to Abergavenny and, […]