Tremar Liskeard Cornwall

Email from Graham Alcock of Shelf Pottery, 8 September 2011

Hi Jeff,

Shelf Pottery began in my garage, at home in Shelf (a small village between Halifax and Bradford in West Yorkshire) and continued on three other sites until I stopped production at the end of the 90s. As the designer and production director I was involved with Tremar Pottery on a day to day basis.

We became involved with Tremar in the early 70s as their, stoneware, table and kitchen ware was an ideal complimentary product to our own stoneware. We had a retail shop but the vast majority of our production was marketed through our party plan organisation. We had large deliveries of Tremar each week as it was extremely popular.

We had no warning when Tremar went into administration and we were left with ten weeks of orders which we were unable to fulfill. After contacting the administrator we solved part of the problem by driving to Cornwall and buying some of the remaining stock.

Shelf and Tremar both used the same mould maker in Stoke. After the liquidation he was left with the block, case and master moulds and, I believe, unpaid bills. As the receiver showed no interest in the moulds, in order to help both our problems, the mould maker made a number of working moulds, which we bought, and used at Shelf. This is how Shelf Pottery came to produce its versions of a small number of Tremar models.

As an alternative to Tremar we bought stoneware from Trequoit Pottery which was designed by Louis Hudson. The ware was very similar to Tremar and the two could easily be confused. Louis had produced his range of stoneware for a long number of years and it is debatable as to which came first.

Tremar produced the right product at the right time and it was a surprise to us all when production ended.

I hope the above recollections may help you understand the interaction of the two potteries.

Best Wishes,

Graham