Retrospective Sale

Bill Crumbleholme Beakerfolk Retrospective Pottery Sale

The Old Slaughterhouse, 40 Elwell Street, Upwey

6th to 10th September 2024  11am to 5pm

There are some retrospective images on the next page of this section

This text is from the forthcoming exhibition catalogue!

I hope you enjoyed this display of ceramics & demonstrations, it was a retrospective event, marking my 70th Birthday.

I welcomed my friends & neighbours & their friends to pop round to look inside the “Old Slaughterhouse”. 

There were displays of my pots through the ages, chatting, cups of tea & pieces of cake. 

Pottery for Sale!

The unsold pots are still for sale - contact me if there is something that takes your fancy! The studio is only open by appointment, look elsewhere to see when I am out on the streets or in the fields selling pots at events!

The pots were all for sale, apart from a few featured in the house bay window which are from my personal collection of early masterpieces, including some from my late mother's collection. 

There were some seconds and test pieces, which are bargains if you are looking for a cheap present for someone you don't like that much!

I am happy to haggle over what you pay, but do not insult my skill! 

You will do better if you make bulk purchases! 

All the pottery can be taken away on payment, which can be made by cash or card using my Sum-Up Card Reader. Or you can come back at night and steal anything you want. 

”The Old Slaughterhouse"

 These buildings were part of the Loverings family butchery business for many years before I moved here, which was over 45 years ago. 

There were chains hanging from the wooden support posts, where animals were tethered before being killed and butchered.

I have since rebuilt some of the walls and re-roofed parts.

Behind the house was a shed where the meat was prepared and stored in a large cold store. I rebuilt that to become a utility room with a lounge above.

The side passage leading into the garden was a small shop, but most of the meat was delivered.

I am now a vegetarian! 

Retrospective Exhibition

This event celebrated my 70th birthday and over 55 years of making pottery since my school days! 

I moved from Weymouth to here in Upwey 45 years ago and set up this studio.

At the end of last century I "gave up the day job" and started being a proper potter, although I've had a beard a long time!

The pots on display have been dug out of storage and sorted into various periods. 

A few precious early pots were on display in the house bay window from my own personal collection, including some from my late mother's collection - not for sale.

I prefer functional wares that people can use in everyday life, but some are more decorative - such as the Raku and the Burnished Smoked Wares.

Over the decades I have experimented with many production methods, some not very successfully, but I have kept the results!

The Pottery Studio

The studio is divided into working & storage areas, the middle part is where the pots are thrown on the kick wheel, now almost 50 years old. 

The electric powered wheel (ex the Abbotsbury Potter) is not working. 

The jigger & jolly machine, also got from the Abbotsbury Potter, was used to produce tableware, but is rarely in action these days. 

The pots are then moved to the kiln room in the lower section, where they finish drying out and may be fired in the electric kiln and then glazed or then taken to be fired in the wood fuelled kiln.

After firing the finished wares are stored in the uphill store, sorted into the various types of pottery.   

Bill Crumbleholme - Potter

Bill is inspired by ancient vessels – bowls, beakers and urns!

He teaches pottery at classes and workshops, mainly at the Upwey Old School Village Hall. There is a very long waiting list for the classes, which you can ask to be added to.

As a member of the Ancient Wessex Network, he works with museums,  archaeologists, universities and heritage centres conducting experiments which explore methods of making pottery using prehistoric technologies.

Bill makes some authentic replicas of old pots by hand, these tend to be sold to museums and archaeologists. 

He also produces wares with the same shapes and decorations but throws them on the wheel and glazes them using more modern methods, so that they can be used as functional pots – being oven & dishwasher proof.  

Wood Fired Pottery

With help of friends we built a kiln locally which we fire using wood as fuel. 

The resulting pottery has a special quality that comes from the fly-ash that lands on the pots and causes mottled textures, this is coupled with the darker colours achieved by a period of reduction – during which the oxygen  is starved inside the kiln chamber so that the iron in the clay is changed and the glazes are also modified.

Each pot has a unique journey through the kiln, with varying amounts of ash and reduction, with temperatures hotter at the top and sides where the flames come in, so each pot is different. 

Ancient Pottery Replicas

I make fairly authentic replicas of ancient ceramics, early Neolithic bowls, Bronze Age urns and beakers, Iron Age and Roman jars and bowls.

They are made by pinching balls of clay into shape, larger vessels are made by joining together circular sections of clay with a tongued & grooved joint.

The surface is smoothed & then decorated, usually by impressing tools such as combs into the clay.

They are fired to turn them ceramic, sometimes in a bonfire or simple kiln made of turf, sometimes in the electric or wood fuelled kilns.

They are not glazed, so are porous, like the originals. The earthenware clay is sometimes dug locally, but often comes out of a plastic bag! Extra materials are added to the clay to give texture, such as sand, seashells or ground up fired flint or old pots.

Other Pottery Experiments

As well as all the different types and styles of ancient pottery that I make, I have also experimented over the years with many other processes for making pots.

The Upwey Potters got me into using the Raku style to produce the distinctive blingy and crazed pots. I personally have never been a great fan of the results, but the pyromaniac in me enjoys the flames!

Jenny Hanrahan encouraged me to try pit firing, more flames! The results are more pleasing when it works well, but can be a bit too subtle or sooty. 

I tried using Porcelain during lock-down, but, although I had some success, it was too soft and collapsed too often.  

Jigger & Jolly Machine

This machine was bought from the Abbotsbury Potter several decades ago. It is a semi-industrial process for making sets of crockery, using spinning plaster moulds, into which clay is pressed by a blade that is lowered down on an arm. Excess clay is cut away and then it is left to dry before removal from the plaster and tidying up round the rim.

There are sets of plaster moulds - dozens of plates, bowls and assorted cups and mugs.

Semi-skilled workers can mass produce wares, but they don't look hand made. A good thrower can produce better pots, more quickly.

I am thinking of selling the machine and all the plaster moulds, so make me an offer! A new machine costs about £5000, with no moulds.  

Old Gas Kiln

The old gas fired kiln was rescued from being skipped by the Abbotsbury Potter, and transported to the studio with the electric wheel and the jigger & jolly machine and some other junk!  

It has never been fired by me.

It makes a useful cupboard.

I will accept any offer from anyone willing to take it way. 

However the bad news is that the cladding contains asbestos and so it is going to be expensive to get rid of – which is what I need to do before much longer.

If you have read this far, well done - you deserve a prize, so when next buying a pot be ready to answer a few simple questions to prove you read it and then claim your reward!