Torquay Devon Mottware Quirky Mottos and All

A quirky and fun English art pottery, begun really as a cottage industry from several modest potteries in the Devon area, especially the Torquay area, of Southern England from local red clays, from the 1870s until the factories closed in the 1960s. 

It is usually of red clay decorated with bright glazes, cottages and mottos or sayings that run the gamut from proverbs and sound advice to nearly outrageous. Always fun and different and very collectible!

There is a wonderful collectors society that used to publish a wonderful quarterly magazine…. The Scandy, named for the stylized foliage often seen on the pottery. Also featured is the traditional cottage. 

There are also flowers, the Kingfisher bird, a cockerel and other designs.

The mottos span folk wisdom, proverbs, advice, folklore and were often in dialect.

Very collectible.

Here are some examples from Time Was Antiques noted with motto and which pottery if known… 

The eggcup above says

Speak little but think much... 

with the traditional cottage on the back. Made by Aller Vale pottery, Torquay Devon in the 1940-1950s.

 a souvenir cup and saucer from Tiree, which a village in the Hebridees of Scotland, made by the Royal Watcombe pottery in Devon between 1958-1966

A rolling stone gathers no moss

From Longpark pottery in Torquay from 1905-1922 is this cream pitcher bearing the Scandy design...

The motto is in dialect and is:

Elp yersel tu craim

I hope you enjoyed a glimpse at a few examples of this fun pottery genre...

to see more examples at Time Was Antiques, click on the photos, or visit this link for the Cottage Ware and Motto Ware category

  

All I needed to know I learned from mottoware...and Dove choc wrappers

Okay, okay...that's not quite true, but it struck me this week that there are fun phrases and words of wisdom everywhere!I just added a mottoware egg cup to Time Was Antiques. I am quite partial to Torquay, Devon mottoware  and had sold a lot in the last 20 years. I just love the mottos...can't wait to see what the next I find will say.

Speak Little, Speak Well. The world of communication in a nutshell...or an eggshell if you prefer. The eggcup was made by Watcombe, Torquay and dates to between 1900-1920. The traditional cottage is a favorite design, as well as a stylized floral design called a scandy. The design is made by scratching into and through the slip and then the piece is glazed and fired. So cute! For more about the mottoware eggcup at Time Was Antiques, click on the phot.


As to the other learning source, I had just received some Valentine's Day Dove dark chocolate pieces from a tea friend and realized that their are quotes of wisdom inside each of the wrappers. I know, I know...you already knew that...but I'm a bit slow figuring it out. So here are 2 recent ones:

Here's to something 

more powerful than chocolate.

Hope

Leah

New York, NY

When you can't 

control the wind,

adjust your sails.

Brenda

Schofield,WI

Too fun, huh? So...as chocolate is good for you (YESSS!!!!) the next time yopu need a bit of cheering up, have a chocolate...and read the wrapper! Or...find a bit of mottoware and have a peruse.

For more info on the Royal Wedding including routes, wedding party, and British wedding traditions and buzz, etc check out my twitter feed: @timewasantiques or follow me on facebook. Both buttons are on the left sidebar of the blog here to take you to my pages.

Hope you have a great weekend and enjoy a cup of tea with a friend today.

Cold Snap Continues in England and more mottoware added

Snow and cold continued in the UK. This is a photo of Buckingham Palace in the snow from another visit a few years ago. It was quite fun to be in London in the snow...in April! My husband was a Coldstream Guard in the Brigade of Guards (also known as the Chilly Rivers) and found the guard at Buck House before they had to bring the guards inside the gate after an incident with an American tourist heckling a fellow guardsman while on duty.

There was something cheering about popping into a pub or tea room for a cuppa with the snow lightly falling. But then, anything is lovely with a cuppa and a Eccles cake!

 A countryside snow photo. The roads can be treacherous as few folks have snow tires. But...beautiful. This is on the way through the Cotswolds.

 On to another piece of mottoware pottery...which I just love. This is a butter tub or butter dish from Longpark, Torquay with the vernacular motto Elp Yerzel Tu Butter with a tradition sailing ship on the other side that I just added at Time Was Antiques. I recently unearthed a small collection we had gotten in England but  had been lost in the warehouse since our move several years ago. Stuff was arriving from a buying trip as we were packing to move & it got repacked, mis labeled and lost! I'd forgotten we had them. How fun is that!!!

Click the photo for more information.

Rain & sunshine today, in  the 40s and we are off to the Sequim Community Church Christmas program tonight. So fun!  Plan to use up some bananas baking some Banana Streusel muffins in the meantime. Have a great day!

Mottoware Pottery Cup And Saucer Take A Cup Of Kindness

There is a lot of really idiosyncratic English items. Mottoware, or motto ware, Devon ware, Torquay ware or Devon pottery is such a classification. The area of England in the South called Devon, especially surrounding the coastal town of Torquay yielded red clay in the early 1800s the area became famous for. The clay and it's imaginitive uses a sprouted a pottery industry that managed to have remnants survive into the early 1960s. The pottery falls into several classifications and collecting areas, but most have sgraphito, scraffito or carved sayings through the underglaze dine before the final firing. Funny, sentimental, outrageous and humorous the mottos or sayings are great fun and a collecting area of their own. 

 There is a Torquay Pottery Collector's Society in England that we are members of that has done a great job of tracking down the history of the potteries, designers and artisans. They have annual conventions but we have never managed to be in the country at the right time! Ah well.

This particular example I just listed at Time Was Antiques is unusual because of it's rare flat cup shape...which I am calling by the modern nomer of a latte shape. Cool! The design in the traditional cottage design and is all  hand thrown, desorated and painted. A real cottage industry.
You can see more about the set HERE