Shop Front Stories
OBJECT: Ambleside Pottery
LOCATION: The Giggling Goose
Opposite where you are standing you should be able to see a building with a water wheel below. This is now part of the Giggling Goose café, but its origins date back to 1453 when it was built as a fulling mill (where woollen cloth was pounded to remove oils and to mat together the fibres to give the cloth strength). From 1680 to 1930 it was a corn mill but shortly after this time it fell into disuse. In 1948 George Cook, a talented studio potter, established “The Potter’s Wheel” and led a team of potters here for the next twenty years. In 1968 the business was sold to Brian Jackson but by 1982 it was no longer financially viable and closed. This later use as a pottery studio is where our final items on this trail hold their story – the creation of a unique ceramic style called Ambleside Pottery. The items that Cook, and later Jackson, produced included a variety of objects such as table ware and other household objects like table lamp bases, plant pots and ash trays. All were sold to local householders, guesthouses and visitors. Cook also made sculptural pieces such as large ornate vases as can be seen in the images here. Output during Jackson’s time included painted pieces with humorous pictures and depictions of wildlife as well as intricately patterned items, some using the sgraffito technique in which background glaze is scratched off before firing.
In the early years George Cook had attempted to generate electric power for the pottery kilns using the water wheel to improve the finances but in this he was unsuccessful. The water wheel, some of the internal building features and the pottery remain as evidence to the histories and stories of this Ambleside industry. If you are lucky, you might see the water wheel in action today as it is still operational. Nowadays you can find the odd piece of Ambleside Pottery available for sale in places like the antique shop, Price Walker, in Keswick, or like at The Armitt, part of a museum or heritage collection.
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Here we are now at the end of the trail. We hope you have enjoyed learning about some of our museum objects and the hidden shop front stories they have to tell. You can discover more at The Armitt so to walk back to the museum, all you need to do is follow North Road to the end, going past The Unicorn pub and Garside Butchers. Once at the end turn left down Smithy Brow until you reach the mini roundabout. Please be careful walking down Smithy Brow as there are no pavements. The Armitt is now just on the right-hand side and accessed by a pedestrian entrance in the wall. As you make your return, note the cobbled water channels at the sides of the roads. The maintenance for these was paid for by a legacy in the 1653 will of Gwain Braithwaite (initials on the market cross). On the left towards the bottom of Smithy Brow is The Old House, parts of which are believed to be remnants of Ambleside Hall.
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