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Ceramics and Music in a unique venue
Spend an afternoon in the convivial surroundings of Castle House indulging your eyes and ears on a miscellany of “Pots and Pieces”. Two presentations will tell the relatively modern story of the pots produced by Yorkshire’s Hornsea Pottery and Staffordshire’s Moorcroft Pottery. Our musicians will provide additional pieces in the form of a variety of baroque musical gems.

Relax in the intimate surroundings of Castle House, listen to the sounds of early music and learn what makes Hornsea and Moorcroft pottery so special.

In contrast to the ceramics which would have originally adorned the splendid building that today forms most of the elegant property which we now know as Castle House, we offer an opportunity to learn about two important Potteries and see some of their fascinating products.

Moorcroft Pottery has been in existence for over a hundred years and is well known for its intricate and often colourful hand decorated tube-lined art pottery. Until recently generations of the Moorcroft family ran the company, supported financially by the London store Liberty. Moorcroft pottery is highly collectable. It has a loyal following and a thriving collectors’ club. The grade II listed factory still resides in the Burslem district of Stoke-on-Trent where Moorcroft production first started. Aimed at the luxury end of the collector and gift markets, production today is generally in the form of such items as display plates, vases, pin trays, lamp-bases and jars of varying shape and size.

Hornsea Pottery lasted barely 50 years and is no more. Its heyday was the 1960s and 1970s when across the world many homes had green, brown or cobalt blue “Heirloom” dinner, tea and coffee services – all from a factory on the “edge of things” in the small seaside town of Hornsea in East Yorkshire. In addition to tableware (all of which was accepted for inclusion in the Design Centre Index) Hornsea Pottery produced “Fauna”, a range of decorative animals on logs or with trees. Most distinctive, however, was its production of vases, bowls and other pieces by designers such as John Clappison. There is a collectors’ society and today those pieces of Hornsea pottery which are of their time and yet also fit modern homes are, like Moorcroft, highly collectable.

Come and see what you think.

The afternoon will include musical interludes from the first half of the 18th century given by The Longslade Consort.

©2013 Leicester Early Music.