You may wonder where the name Emma Bridgewater comes from – well it’s quite simple really – it is the name of one of the founders. Emma (nee Bridgewater) and Matthew Rice, her husband, own and run the company which produces this delightful range of pottery. They design and work together on the patterns that we all know and love, a real family affair.
It all started when Emma struggled to find a birthday present for her mum, from whom her design inspiration first started. She wanted to find something less formal than a stiff looking bone china dinner service, something more relaxed and liked colourful Italian terracotta pieces but these weren’t right nor tough enough for everyday use, so in a ‘light bulb’ moment she decided to design something herself. With her entrepreneurial spirit behind her she soon had samples to showcase to buyers and the rest, as they say, is history.
Emma Bridgewater pieces are not only useful they are elegant and are available in a wide number of eye catching designs - both shape and pattern. The beauty of Emma Bridgewater’s standard shapes are that the patterns, although very different, sit perfectly well together and you can use them to make an eye catching kitchen or dining room display. The only trouble you will have is sticking at owning just one piece - all of her pottery is so addictive, many of us here now have a cupboard full!
If you wish to start a collection the pattern groupings mean you can either start with a piece from each pattern, or choose a particular design to focus on, such as Black Toast, Stipple, Flowers, or Birds, to name but a few, and then extend your collection from there. All her shapes make great gifts, and there are pieces to suit all budgets, so this gives family and friends a really great opportunity to help add to your collection on special days such as birthdays, anniversaries, or Christmas. Plus Emma Bridgewater also has some great mugs with specific occasions in mind - including holiday festivals such as Easter, the Royal Wedding, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, Halloween or even a mug for an end of term teacher treat!
To give a little bit about all of the work which goes into each piece here’s a bit of information about the factory:
The Emma Bridgewater factory is based on the banks of the Cauldon Canal, Stoke on Trent which was the powerhouse of pottery in the 1700 and 1800’s.
Stoke is a very famous pottery town and Wedgwood too had their original factories there at Etruria. Staffordshire had plenty of clay, salt, coal, and lead which lent itself very easily for pottery production. Emma Bridgewater still sources some of her clay from Staffordshire but also Wales and Cornwall. At the factory the clay becomes beautiful shapes of pottery through the process of slip casting. To cut a long and laborious story short, moulds are filled with liquid clay (or ‘slip’) which has a double cream type consistency for pouring. The purpose of the moulds is to absorb moisture and the longer the time left to set the more moisture will be absorbed. Mould setting time is a finely tuned art and the length of time to set depends on each mould type – get the part wrong and you will have to discard the piece and reuse the clay for another piece. Once set the wet clay is tipped out leaving the cast of the shape, which is then smoothed with a sponge and left on shelves to dry overnight – at this stage its cast has a consistency rather like an Easter egg warmed slightly in the sun. At Emma Bridgewater some 3700 pieces can be cast daily – each mould is generally used twice in the day and how many depends on the type of moulds used – teapots taking longer than egg cups for example. After drying the pieces are then ready for glazing and firing.
Plates such as the Black Toast & Marmalade 8 1/2" Plate and bowls such as the Emma Bridgewater Hellebore Pasta Bowl have a slightly different method of production and they require clay not slip. It arrives with the potter as a sausage lump which they call virgin clay. The potter then slices off a piece to size with a cheese wire type cutter, flattens, places on a bat, and slaps the bat onto the mould. A tool is then used to create the bowl lip and when complete the piece is left to dry as before.
Emma Bridgewater pottery is made from cream earthenware in warm cream tones and by basing the factory in such a historic pottery area means the potters are able to draw on long well-evolved and traditional techniques, skills and knowledge which go back some 200 years. Earthenware is a lightly fired type of pottery and needs to be glazed otherwise it readily absorbs water. It does not allow light to pass through it. As the cream glaze is applied to the earthenware body the product then becomes creamware. This is the base of colour where all the magic starts and where Emma & Matthew, husband and wife, and the design studio have their fun bringing to you all of your favourite designs. This is one of the Emma Bridgewater’s key winning moves – by having the same cream base to all of her designs this means that all the pieces sit well together.