The Waun Hir Story Archives - Nick Membery Pottery

What the Future Holds

March 21, 2012 Posted by : Nick

Looking ahead now; there’s still some straw to plaster and walls to be lime washed but other than that the making room at Waun Hir Pottery is pretty much there.

In the next room is the kilns. The smaller gas kiln can be picked up by four people and put into the back of a van and has been in every pottery I’ve ever worked in. Including Manningtree Pottery where I did my apprenticeship over 20 years ago. (I bought it from Mike Goddard who owned the pottery). Then there is the other temporary (8 years so far) kiln. This all introduces the next project at Waun Hir Pottery; the showroom. The plan is to erect a lean- to along the back wall of the pottery and house the kilns outside. I intend to build a larger gas kiln and at sometime in the future a wood fired kiln too. I don’t believe being totally reliant on fossil fuels for pottery firing, indefinitely into the future is wholly sustainable. Continue Reading…

Clay on the Walls

February 12, 2012 Posted by : Nick

…Start from the beginning.

The walls are fine as they are – aren’t they? They certainly could be, but despite the fact this has all taken a long time, it will be fantastic when this is all finally finished!

The traditional covering of a straw wall is not surprisingly the same as the covering of a masonry wall – plaster. The only difference being conventional practise on masonry utilises cement, while a plaster for straw should be breathable. This breathability is the most desirable approach on any solid wall structure that pre-dates damp courses. Indeed the straw walls when plastered and lime washed, being close to two feet thick will actually look very much like the stone walls themselves.

Workshop Built of Straw

January 21, 2012 Posted by : Nick

…Start from the beginning.

Another winter saw the mercury plummet to record lows. I’ve always had a wood burner in my pottery and would never be able to dry the pots without one. But the trouble was I was heating the sky by day and it was getting so cold at night that despite wrapping I was still loosing pots to the frost.

Insulation is the key and this is where having a small temporary workshop for so long, allowed me to compromise when deciding on the size of my permanent workshop. You see the problem I had was that the cow shed is over 70 feet long, I had always fully intended to build two internal concrete block walls to divide the building into three – it was just a matter of in which position? (Or as it turns out with what?)

Pots at Last

December 8, 2011 Posted by : Nick

…Start from the beginning.

Making pots at last it should have been. In truth it didn’t actually turn out quite like that. Indeed we were living within four stone walls and really it should have been time to move onto turning the former cowshed into my perfect pottery workshop. Finally knuckling down and throwing lots of pots. The reality though was somewhat different.

The workshop like the house had nice new doors and the leaking roof had been repaired. I must say it looked lovely from the outside. Inside though – fairly cavernous really, well you can see from the picture, kind of cow shed just without the cows.

The Next Chapter

November 18, 2011 Posted by : Nick

…Start from the beginning.

On arriving in Wales the realisation how mammoth the task at hand was soon took hold. The house had been neglected for decades and it seemed that I was becoming a builder. Had we moved to the country to become property developers? Of course not but our dilemma was we had images in our heads of country houses, with workshops and showrooms, but the reality was a derelict pile!

The best I could manage was a temporary workshop in the smallest and most weather tight shed. I also built a temporary kiln so production all be it on a scaled down level could take place. I made pots if I had orders and if not I worked on the house.

Where the Story of Waun Hir Pottery Begins

October 30, 2011 Posted by : Nick

On 9/9/99 I moved into a small Victorian Mews workshop in Brighton – for obvious reasons I don’t suppose I’ll ever forget the date.
My partner Sue and I, along with our first child moved from the big smoke to the little smoke by the sea – Brighton, having lived in London for nearly fifteen years.
Ever since leaving college in 1989 I had been an urban potter and rented a couple of large workshops shared with other artists. The first was in the then fairly run down Hoxton Square near Old Street and the later was a capacious space rented from the well known ceramicist Kate Malone about a mile north in Balls Pond Road.