Powell and Llangollen Studio Pottery (Wales)

Llangollen Pottery (1950-1980?) north Wales; the pottery certainly existed in 1951 - they were invited to have a stand at the town's Festival of Britain trade exhibition in June 1951 but this invite was declined.  Founded by Rhys Powell and wife Jean it was one of the first studio potteries in Wales.  Occupying premises at the Old Waterloo Forge, around 1953-54 moved to Regent Street until closure.
A former slaughter house, among the debris an old sheep's cradle was found, the profile of this was used as the trademark.

8" high
By the late 50's the pottery was floundering . Two young art school graduates Una Dyer and Claire Littleboy took a gamble and cleared old debts and started a new enterprising free form style using local red "terra cotta" clay , the studio opened and flourished,5 or 6 local people were employed.

They won a number of design awards in the early 60's , one of their coffee sets was exhibited at the design centre manchester in 1966. the design was utilised by a number of major staffordshire potteries. by the end of the 60's the girls married and moved on . pottery purchased by Lloyd Thomas family till its closure.

11.5"
Work from the pottery is increasingly being collected early jean powell and the abstract work of misses Dyer and littleboy the most sought after , examples have appeared on "flog it" "bargain hunt" and "antiques roadshow", up to £10-£30 for late examples and £120= for powell/dyer/ littleboy pieces.

Some early wares were not always marked, same applies to experimental pieces by D and L .some have a made in wales mark , some stamped Langollen pottery , and some impressed just llangollen , rarer items powell pottery .

Information on the net is non existent about this small but underated pottery ,i tried for ages ,until Langollen museum put me in touch with Colin Hurst who supplied the info gleaned over the years from ex workers and local folks , the vases pictured are mine but similar ones are displayed in llangollen , So many thanks Colin .

11.75" high one of my favs , similar in green glaze in millers 2007 collectables Graham Cooley collection , tha..tha..that's all folks Ed

early 1950's piece

rare bowl

Green glaze

1970's

Large heavy jug/vase 11" 1960's

Your pots are lovely Ed. I have only one piece of Llangollen and its a little cockerel/rooster (looks French for some reason) ornament that unfortunatley met with something hard and had his head broken off. Its been stuck back on (many years ago) but has never been the same!

Thanks Raine, the larger pieces are getting harder to find and there is a small but growing group of collectors out there , Info is very hard to come by as well ,though one woman emailed for info as she said she was writing a book on the pottery , but who knows when , can you post a pic of the little rooster with the broken head anyway , is there anything written on the base.

If you don't mind my less than professional photography I'll try and photograph it tomorrow as I don't have a pic at the moment. Just had a look at the base and it's unglazed white/cream clay with LLANGOLLEN on one edge of the circular hole in the base and the crib symbol the other side. Oh, the decor is quite free hand painted in a petrol/dark turquoise blue, yellow (ish) and black in a sort of accenting manner rather than completely colouring the piece.

It would be interesting to see it , as I have only seen red clay pieces .

OK Ed, here it is. It's not the full head that has been broken off and stuck back on but the cockscomb. Just a note, there are two base photos: The first bright one is taken with flash and shows near enough the colour of the base. The second has been enhanced using image manipulation so that you may have a better view of the marks. Look forward to your views. Oh, it's 17cms to the tip of the cockscomb.



It really is not dirty as it looks in the last base picture!

Hi Raine, he is very nice , it's a shame about the breakage, but still a nice little piece of llangollen , ( I like him ),I know they used the local terracotta and now I wonder if they used the white clay on ornamental stuff only, how long have you had him ?

they probably used the white clay when slipcasting

Hi Ed, we've probably had him about 15 years. We bought him in this condition but we can't remember where. He just was very attractive to us and so we got him. I enjoyed photographing him actually as it gave me the opportunity to really look at him up close again as he 'lives' in the little glass fronted cupboard of our dresser and rarely comes out! I'm glad you like him.

Thanks raine Iam going to be on the look out for now , BTW we were in abergavenny market today and I spotted pub ashtrays one was watneys red made by wade and one was Will's gold flake carnival glass, I bought them for £1 each ,I have discovered the carnival is very rare it's in an old carnival book at £125 and that was 10 yrs ago , it's the only english advertising piece of the period , so it was only cause you mentioned ashtrays that I bought them , so cheers for that
Cheers

early llangollen , quite rare