Coombe Pottery Hub

BUILDING ON HISTORY

Pottery and ceramics have always played a part in Coombe’s 35+ year history. Over the years we have run residential classes, evening classes, a Saturday kids club and the Coombe Futures Prize, supporting graduates from Plymouth College of Arts. Coombe Director Lara Lloyd first started making pots as a kid growing up at Coombe and went on to study it A Level, at a time when there was a thriving ceramics department at the local secondary school in Totnes. She went on to live in Vietnam working in village potteries. There is also a rich local pottery history beyond Coombe, notably at The Dartington Hall Trust from the early 1920s, when they first started consulting with Bernard Leach about the Dartington pottery, the pottery was then set up by Jane Fox-Strangways and in the years that followed Leach and many other notable potters came to the area, including Marianne De Trey (who went on to run the Dartington pottery) and the two great Japanese potters, Yanagi Sōetsu and Shōji Hamada. Many professional potters continue to live and work in the area, including our residential tutors Laurel Keeley and Tim Andrews, who are also members of The Devon Guild of Craftsman, a craft membership organisation in the area, which has a wealth of fantastic potters. Richenda Macgregor set up the busy Potting Shed nearby and then went on to bring potters back to Dartington working together with Mel Chambers to set up an run Studio 45, which significantly supported 100s of potters in the area thorough weekly classes, specialist workshops and a members programme. We are lucky and hugely thankful to be able to build on all these histories and to incorporate their learning into the Coombe Community Ceramics Hub.