Wellhouse pottery Paignton, Devon

WELLHOUSE POTTERY
The Wellhouse Pottery

Well Street, Paignton 1964-1982

This pottery at Paignton was started by designers Toni and Raymond Smith (Toni Raymond) in 1964 following the purchase of stock and equipment from Priddoe’s Studio Pottery Paignton. The Wellhouse artist/manager was Peter Greenham and he later bought the pottery after the Toni Raymond business acquisition of the Babbacombe Pottery in 1967 and subsequent move there.

The Wellhouse Pottery

Old Pound Street, Brixham 1982-2002

It was about 1982 that Peter Greenham moved the pottery to The Old Pound House premises of the Brixham Pottery. There they continued to make high glazed, pigment decorated domestic wares with bold brush script lettering.
Cyril Wilson a very experienced Torquay potter worked there in semi-retirement and made several commemorative items in traditional Torquay terracotta clay and decorated with a coloured slip and sgraffito design.

Pottery marked “Thrown by Cyril Decorated by Deirdre 1997″ was a private collaboration between Cyril Wilson all round experienced potter and Deirdre Wood retired chief decorator at the Babbacombe pottery. Cyril threw the pots and Deirdre decorated them for Cyril to fire at the Wellhouse Pottery where he worked part-time. Most of this pottery was made specially by them to be sold at a TPCS meeting May 1997. It is unlikely that many were made.

In 2001 Wellhouse pottery commissioned the Dartmouth Pottery to make terracotta items, but unfortunately both potteries closed down shortly afterwards in 2002.

The Wellhouse pottery used a common looking backstamp between 1964 and 2002, however the bottom line will read either Paignton or Brixham which will help determine where and when the item was made.

From original research by Keith Poole