A Day at The County Museum

Friday 5th February 2010

DPG members and their guests spent the day at the County Museum in Dorchester. It was a very pleasant social meeting, with some inspirational pottery on display and and excellent fish lunch at Billy the Fish's Seafood restaurant (Tel 01305 757428 / 07709 428389).

Several new friendships were started and some useful contacts and suggestions made for future DPG events.

The Hand-Made Pot: a West Country inspiration.

This major sales exhibition focuses on four twentieth-century potters all working in the South-West. It traces the connections between Don Potter, ceramics tutor at Bryanston, and his students Richard Batterham and Mike Dodd, to the influential St Ives-trained potter and student of Bernard Leach, Katherine Pleydell-Bouverie.
Exhibition is on until February 20.

The display is a truly inspirational collection of pottery by the two featured potters, which encouragingly had almost sold out.

This was enhanced by additional collections of pieces by their mentors and contemporaries.

Members of the DPG enjoyed discussing the relative merits of pieces and techniques displayed and went away with an enthusiastic feeling.

‘Survey of a kiln in East Dorset Verwood Potteries’

Evening Archaeology lecture by Dan Carter
Start at 7.30pm
The winner of Dorset Archaeology Award Bowl at the Eleventh DAC awards 2009, with an introduction by Penny Copland-Griffiths.
The Verwood Potteries Trust has a website at this link.

The DPG contingent had spoken to Penny earlier, and bribed her with tea and cake! She has issued an invitation to visit her home and study her extensive archive of Verwood pottery pieces and her own collection pottery. This will be followed up in due course.

Dan Carter gave an interesting insight into how archaeologists approach the assessment of a site with known associations with the previous pottery industry. His survey and analysis done while studying at Bournemouth University will ensure that if the site is ever threatened with disturbance that it will be properly excavated - it may even be uncovered as part of a future project.

A Tour of the Permanent Collections

Peter Woodward, the museum curator and archaeologist (soon to reture) gave a tour of the Museum's collection of ceramics - from very early archaeology to relatively modern samples. This opened the eyes of many potters to the rich resource held by the museum and the desire to return and study the pots in greater detail.

The Museum

The County Museum is a wonderful repository of artefacts and knowledge, an excellent resource for creative people looking for inspiration and ideas.

For only £24 annually, membership of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society provides many benefits and supports the work of the museum.

Visit the museum's website for more information.