Stories from Marco Polos Warehouse

Coal Pits.

When my eye passes over my Winchcombe shelves I can hear a lot of memories calling me in different directions.   The shelves themselves were bought at the Cornhall Market over 20 years ago as a homage to my friend Marc Drogin, but I don’t want to fall down that particular wormhole of memory today. Instead I want to focus on the small, quite humble ochre jug, bought from who knows where now.  I suspect I may have negotiated a better price for it based on the tiny indentations in the surface, which I read as damage, presuming it had perhaps been dropped at some point. .

I had a  friend John Edgler, who lived in Winchcombe in the Cotswolds and was, as it amused him to say, ‘potty about pots’. He was a great authority on Winchcombe pottery, which was started in the 1920s by Michael Cardew.  John wrote several definitive books about Cardew and the  pottery  and from the way he spoke about the potter, he was a personal friend of his (alas Cardew died  in 1983 when John was still at school). John didn’t drive, when I asked him about it he murmured evasively he had ‘never really taken to it’. An odd answer but he was a splendid eccentric man,  never had a partner but was charming and frustrating in equal measure. Barely had a friend he hadn’t fallen out with at some point, but somehow  everyone got over the falling out and treated it as a badge of honour being friends with John.

The ‘not having taken to driving’ meant he recruited his friends on a rotating basis to take him to various places so as not to place too much burden on the friendship I think.  I was asked to take him to Rodmarton Manor to view a collection of early 20thC puppets  and I got extra lucky when he asked me to drive him (in total on 3 occasions) to visit a famous collector who was lending some pots for an exhibition John was hosting in Queen Anne House, his gallery in Winchcombe.   The collector we were visiting? None other than Sir David Attenborough, DA as John affectionately referred to him as.    I was selected  for this honour, lucky me, because John reasoned  with a background in the theatre I wasn’t going to be thrown by meeting someone famous. He was right in his reasoning, the only time I’ve ever been at all starstruck was on meeting Dame Peggy Ashcroft and sitting next to her in the Aldwych Theatre, then London home of the RSC when my alarm clock went off in the middle of the performance  - mobiles are positively discreet compared to an alarm clock believe me. (That meeting is another tempting wormhole of memory but I need to stay with the Winchcombe pot here.)

It was an evening some years before Covid when John came to stay the night for our 1st visit to DA.  I  picked him up from a nearby bus stop and cooked, a probably somewhat lacklustre supper by his standards (he was no mean cook whereas my cooking can be a bit hazard).  Anyway sitting by my log fire in the Chinese sitting room,  I at least provided John with a decent glass of Calvados.  I decided to take advantage of the moment to ask him about my Winchcombe jug featured here. I presented it to him and he sat back, brandy balloon nurtured in one hand, Cardew jug in the other.

‘I know it’s not marked MC,’ I said ‘but I always thought that it was quite early and that there was a chance that it might be Cardew?’  Always the optimist me.

He held the jug at a distance, while delicately sipping the Calvados like a cat lapping at cream.

‘Undoubtedly Cardew.’ John was decisive and somehow seemed to be addressing the jug itself rather than me.  ‘Cardew was right-handed and the way he pulled his handles is distinctive, the handle is as good as a signature.’

‘And what sort of date do you think it is’ I asked, happy that my instinct had been correct.

‘Pre-March 1928.’

‘Bloody hell John, that’s a bit precise isn’t it?’

‘It’s the coal pits.’

‘Coal pits?’

‘Oh come on Natasha,’  he said in the tone of an exasperated teacher talking to a favoured pupil who had just fallen flat on their face.

‘Winchcombe was built on the side of a deserted railway line.’ That much I knew. 

‘When Cardew 1st started with Elijah Comfort’  (see below)  ‘ he hadn’t much money. The clay would come up from  Fremington  and when it was delivered it was dumped on the site where previously the coal had been dumped to fuel the steam engines. ‘

‘And?’ I was fascinated, hooked on this mini Antiques Roadshow evaluation taking place in my sitting room.

‘It meant the clay was contaminated with tiny specks of coal dust which exploded in the kiln.’

‘Coal pits?’

He nodded & sipped some more Calvados.

‘And March 1928?’

‘Was when Cardew bought  a pug mill to wash the clay. No more coal pits.’

‘Meaning it’s not damaged at all but part of the firing process.’

He nodded somewhere between gracious & outright condescension and a sigh, caught up with what was screamingly self-evident to him. Conversations with John frequently proceeded like this. He presumed you had the same encyclopedic knowledge of potters and makers that jostled around in his head. Possibly the only person who could probably keep up with his internal conversations,  and I dare say even he was challenged at times,  was DA. More of those encounters in another story.  When I look at this jug the entire evening pops up in my memory even down to his exasperated sigh at my willful or woeful ignorance.

A recent addition to this fireside memory happened when I visited Snowshill Manor in the Cotswolds with some dear American friends of mine.  In  the last rooms was a Winchcombe pot on a windowsill which they attributed to Cardew and dated around the late 1930s. Perfectly reasonable for it to be there because Charles Wade was wandering the Cotswolds collecting when Cardew was potting.   I waited for a quiet moment to catch the eye of the room guide. I suggested that because the jug had visible coal pits, which I explained hopefully more gently than John did to me, that I thought the jug most likely  dated to pre-March 1928. The guide whisked out his pencil and made some notes.   I confess a little bit of me was showing off and I had a mental battle whether to say something or not, until I decided it was more important to share the knowledge as a tribute to my potty friend.  Here’s to John Edgler, a true English eccentric, and besotted collector with many happy memories.

Winchcombe pottery was founded in 1926 by Michael Cardew an early student of Bernard Leach. When Cardew acquired the site he took on 2 locals Elijah Comfort already well stricken in years who had worked in the Greet pottery and who had the ability to throw huge pieces. He also took on a young assistant who made thousands of production pieces, Sid Tustin.  They used Fremington clay imported from Devon, which was enjoyed by potters for its plasticity I think.   Winchcombe pottery was and is on the site of an older pottery in Greet just outside Winchcombe. There is still a pottery in existence, which you can visit and buy pieces from. If you are truly interested in Winchcombe pottery the John Edgler Collection can be seen in John’s old home and gallery in the town – if there is not a current exhibition see the links on my Instagram post to take you to the site.  Appointments by arrangement (sometimes I have the pleasure of doing duty at the exhibitions).