Leach Pottery

The Leach Pottery was founded in 1920 by Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada in St Ives, Cornwall, in the United Kingdom.

The buildings grew from an old cow / tin-ore shed in the 19th century to a pottery in the 1920s with the addition of a two-storey cottage built later, on to the lower end of the pottery (the Pottery is built on a steep hill over an ancient river bed), followed by a completely separate cottage at the top of the site added by Leach in 1927.

In 1922 Tsuronosuke Matsubayashi came from Japan to rebuild an unsuccessful climbing kiln for the pottery, he built a three chambered traditional Japanese Noborigama the first Japanese climbing kiln in the western world, and this was used until the 1970s.

Bernard's son David Leach who trained at the North Staffordshire Technical College, became manager in 1937 abandoning production of earthenware, developing a new stoneware body and taking on local apprentices.Michael Cardew was an early student and William Marshall an apprentice.Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie became an apprentice in 1924Warren MacKenzie from the USA and Len Castle from New Zealand also worked here.

The pottery's Standard Ware was first issued in 1946 and can be found in the V&A collection. Mail order catalogues were distributed and the range was produced until 1979. Three basic glazes were used for the ware Celadon, Tenmoku and oatmeal with overpainting in brown and blue.

After Bernard's death in 1979 his wife Janet Leach stopped production of standard ware to concentrate on her own pots until her death in 1997 after which the pottery was purchased by Alan Gillam. The property was acquired by Penwith District Council as part of the Leach Restoration Project

...
Wikipedia