Blog Arts de la table

One of the slightly odd things about replacement china is that it does not behave like ordinary retail stock.

If a current product sells out in a shop, the retailer can usually order more. With discontinued china, it is different. Once a pattern is no longer being made, every plate, bowl, mug or serving dish has to come from the pieces already out there in the world.

That means some items are available regularly, while others may take a little patience.

Indian Tree is one of those tableware designs that seems to belong to many potteries at once. Rather than being tied to a single maker, it became a decorative style interpreted by a wide range of British manufacturers, each bringing its own shapes, colours and character to the design.

At MrPottery, we have seen versions by Johnson Brothers, Duchess, Aynsley, Coalport and Wedgwood, among others.

It is a smaller new stock update this week, as we have not been out buying quite as much, but there are still some useful and interesting replacement pieces now added to the website.

This week’s arrivals include several Denby favourites, with Seville, Black Pepper and Calm all represented, along with a couple of collectable Poole jam pots and some decorative Royal Doulton plates for those who enjoy something a little different.

When people think about replacing china, it is usually the obvious pieces that come to mind first. Dinner plates, bowls, mugs, cups and saucers… the everyday items that are used, washed, stacked and occasionally dropped.

But every good dinner service had another layer to it. The pieces that made a table feel properly set. The teapot, the gravy boat, the serving platter, the vegetable dish, the tureen.

Few tableware designs capture the warm, optimistic feel of the 1970s quite like J & G Meakin "Poppy". With its bold orange and red floral decoration, simple shapes and unmistakably retro styling, it has become one of those patterns that instantly transports people back to...

We’ve added another varied selection of discontinued china and replacement pieces to the website this week, including classic Marks & Spencer Harvest, a rare Johnson Brothers Indies soup tureen in excellent condition, and a good selection of Royal Worcester Bacchanal plates in both white and cream versions.

There was a time when many households had two kinds of tableware. There was the “best china”, often kept carefully in a cabinet, and then there was the everyday set, the one that did the real work.

By the 1970s, that balance had started to shift.

Few tableware designs are as instantly recognisable as Royal Albert “Old Country Roses”. With its rich clusters of red, pink and yellow roses set against fine bone china and finished with elegant gold edging, it has become one of the most enduring and widely collected patterns of the 20th century.