About

About the potter

I became a potter by chance. I was engaged in postgraduate studies in Theology at Bristol when I paid a fortuitous visit to Aldermaston Pottery. A month later I became apprenticed to Alan Caiger Smith.

He and Edgar Campden taught me to throw, to glaze and to decorate pots in the tin glazed earthenware tradition. This was a revelation for me as I had never touched clay before. It was a wonderful place to learn and four years later, in 1987, I set up my own studio near Newbury where I continued to make majolica. I was a member of The Oxfordshire Craft Guild and The Guild of Craftsmen of Hampshire and Berkshire and exhibited widely – in Newbury, Henley, Richmond, Farnham and Cambridge.

In 1994 I moved, with my husband, to America where we stayed for six years on a farm near the Delaware river. Here I met lots of other potters and we built a wood fired salt kiln in one of the fields. This was another revelation. I loved using stoneware and firing it with wood and salt was exciting after years of working with a strictly controlled and largely predictable electric kiln. Ever since we built that kiln I have been learning more about making pots – about form, glaze and firing. In 1995 I became a founder member of The Covered Bridge Artisans who had studio tours and exhibitions twice a year – and still do. I exhibited in Stockton, Lambertville, Princeton and Philadelphia.

In 2001 we came back to England and I established a studio in Ewelme. For the last fifteen years or so I have been exploring the myriad possibilities of carbon trap shino glazes, firing in a gas kiln, and experimenting with wood firing in anagama kilns.

I am a member of The Oxfordshire Craft Guild and West Ox Arts and in 2021 I was accepted as a Selected Member of the C.P.A.

About The Pottery

The Ewelme Pottery studio is in the garden of Church Farm House, a 17th century house where Harriet lives with her husband, Dr. Alexandre Akoulitchev, and three cats: Vasya, Grisha and Misha.

The house stands almost opposite the Church in the historic village of Ewelme known for its associations with Henry VIII – who is supposed to have swum in the King’s Pool – Geoffrey Chaucer and, most significantly, Alice, Duchess of Suffolk – the poet’s granddaughter – who had the church, the almshouses and the school built in the 15th century. The school, opened in 1453, is the longest continuously running school in England. Alice, who died in 1475, is memorialised in a remarkable three tiered tomb made entirely of alabaster.

The village is known also for its watercress beds, believed to date back hundreds of years.

The Pottery garden is notable for its climbing roses.