Blog Arts de la table

Some patterns are instantly recognisable, even from the smallest glimpse across a charity shop shelf. Denby Greenwheat is one of them. With its handpainted wheat motif, practical stoneware body and quietly confident mid-century style, it became one of Denby’s best loved tableware designs. First introduced in...

When people talk about replacing a broken plate, cup or serving dish, the words can get a little muddled. One person may call everything china, another may say pottery, while someone else may refer to ceramics, porcelain, bone china, stoneware or earthenware.

Portmeirion Botanic Garden is one of the best-known British tableware designs of the last fifty years, and one of those rare patterns that manages to feel both familiar and fresh.

First created in 1972 by Susan Williams-Ellis, Botanic Garden brought a new kind of relaxed, mix and match charm to the table. Instead of every plate carrying exactly the same decoration, the range used different botanical illustrations across different pieces, tied together by the now famous laurel leaf border.

See below for the latest discontinued china added to our website. Are your replacement china pieces amongst it?

This week’s new stock update brings together a lovely mixture of everyday replacement china, serving pieces, tea ware, giftware and a few rather nice collectable finds.

Summer eating has a different feel to it. It is less about formal place settings and more about sharing. A quiche on the table. A jug of something cold. Bowls of salad. Pickles, chutneys, olives, dips, bread, fruit, cheese, and someone inevitably asking where the...

Wedgwood Hathaway Rose is one of those floral china patterns that feels quietly English without needing to shout about it.

Produced from 1959 to 1987, it is a discontinued Wedgwood fine bone china range decorated with soft pink roses, green and grey foliage, and fine gold edging. It has a gentle, traditional look, but there is more to the pattern than a simple rose border.

There are some places where an industry becomes part of the landscape.

For British tableware, that place is Stoke-on-Trent.

Known around the world as The Potteries, Stoke-on-Trent has been shaped by ceramics for more than 300 years. It is the city behind many of the names found in British cupboards, dining rooms, dressers and sideboards: Wedgwood, Spode, Minton, Johnson Brothers, Royal Doulton, Burleigh, Portmeirion, Royal Stafford and many more.

Not every British tableware story begins in Stoke, of course. But an extraordinary number of them pass through it.

Wedgwood Florentine is one of those tableware patterns that feels unmistakably Wedgwood: elegant, detailed, formal, and just a little bit grand.

It is best known today in its rich Turquoise version, but Florentine is not a single-colour story. Over the years it has appeared in a number of colourways, each giving the same distinctive border design a slightly different character.