Tableware Blog

Denby Ode combines rich Antique Gold stoneware, crisp white interiors and distinctive Greek key decoration. We look at the design, its 1960s roots, its relationship with Echo, and the surprisingly wide range of pieces produced.

A bumper October stock update, with major additions to Wedgwood Garden Maze, Royal Worcester Red Peony and Royal Doulton Florentina, plus plenty of newly added and replenished pieces across Denby, Hornsea, M&S and more.

Once, breakfast had its own dedicated tableware, from large cups and saucers to toast racks, muffin dishes, egg cups and preserve pots. We take a nostalgic look at how the traditional breakfast set disappeared from everyday British tables, and which pieces survived.

Most pieces of china that arrive at MrPottery have already had a life before we ever see them.

They may have spent thirty years in a kitchen cupboard, appeared every Sunday at the dinner table, survived several house moves or belonged to somebody who carefully kept the whole service together long after the pattern disappeared from the shops.

Then, for one reason or another, they find their way onto the shelf of a charity shop.

That is where our part of the story often begins.

There was a time when sending a plate from Dorset to Germany, America or Australia was mostly a question of packing it properly, putting the correct postage on the box and trusting the postal service to do the rest.

Those days feel rather distant.

International shipping has become considerably more complicated in recent years.

Poole Pottery has produced plenty of patterns that are instantly associated with a particular period, and Poole Pottery Vineyard is very much a product of the 1990s.

Designed by Anita Harris, Vineyard combines blue grapes, green vine leaves and softly sponged decoration on a creamy white earthenware body. It has an informal, country kitchen feel that is quite different from the cleaner shapes and solid colours of earlier Poole tableware, yet it still makes good use of the hand decorating skills for which the pottery had long been known.