Blog Arts de la table

We’ve added another fresh selection of discontinued china and replacement pieces to the website this week, with some especially useful everyday items among the latest arrivals. Highlights include Poole Pottery Celadon dinner plates, Wedgwood Blue Pacific soup/cereal bowls, and a small but always welcome group of Royal Albert Old Country Roses.

It is a question we are asked surprisingly often. Is this piece genuine? Could it be a fake? Why is the backstamp different? Why does this pattern look almost the same as another one? The reassuring answer is that, in the everyday replacement china market,...

BHS Lincoln is one of those discontinued tableware ranges that many people remember without necessarily knowing much about it. Sold through British Home Stores and made for everyday use, it was practical, understated and designed for ordinary homes rather than display cabinets.

With its white body, gently embossed fruit decoration and clean, familiar shapes, Lincoln has the quiet charm of a range made for daily life. It was not flashy, but that is very much part of the appeal.

We’ve added another varied selection of discontinued china and replacement pieces to the website this week, with a few particularly interesting and harder to find items among the latest arrivals. Highlights include elegant Spode Midas dinner plates, a useful selection of Marks & Spencer Field Flowers, and several more unusual Hornsea and Poole pieces for collectors.

When people think about collectable or replacement china, the big pottery names often come to mind first. Denby, Hornsea, Royal Worcester, Wedgwood, Poole Pottery and the like all have strong identities, long histories and plenty of well-known patterns.

But some of the most familiar tableware in British homes did not start with a pottery name.

It came from retailers.

Marks & Spencer “Harvest” is one of those familiar designs that seems to have found its way into a remarkable number of British homes. Warm, practical and unmistakably rooted in its period, it became far more than a simple dinner service.

Plain white china sounds simple enough. No bold pattern, no flowers, no dramatic border, no complicated colourway to match.

But anyone who has tried to replace a piece from a white tableware range will know that “plain white” is rarely quite as plain as it first appears.

Shape, glaze, rim detail, weight, finish and even the shade of white can all make a difference. Sometimes the appeal of a white pattern is precisely that the design is quiet, but quiet does not mean without character.

Hornsea Contrast is one of the most distinctive and successful tableware ranges produced by Hornsea Pottery. With its dark brown body, crisp white working surfaces and bold black and white banding, it has a strong, confident look that feels unmistakably of its time, yet still remarkably usable today.