For Catherine

As we travelled along narrow blossom filled country lanes, through quaint Cotswold villages, passed fields carpeted in the hues of blue and yellow from the Linseed and Rapeseed (Canola) crops, suddenly we spotted a sign.

It pointed to Winchcombe Pottery, a place that I wanted to visit, as sometime ago I had mentioned to my blog friend Catherine that I would. Catherine lives in the United States, and although she has never visited the pottery, she is in fact familiar with it, and wrote about it on her own blog. 
Hope that you enjoy Catherine💛

There was a pottery on this site from 1800 which then produced a range of farmhouse wares for the surrounding area, but after the end of WWl it fell into decline. 
In 1926 Michael Cardew, who trained under the distinquished British potter, Bernard Leach, rented the pottery buildings and set about restarting it up again.

It is one of the longest running craft potteries in the country, and makes some of the finest and most practical domestic pottery wares. The pottery still follows the 'Arts and Crafts' ideal of being both beautiful and useful.

Their terracotta pots grace many homes and gardens throughout these isles from modest cottages to grand stately homes.

It was coffee time when we arrived, and all of the potters had left their wheels and were sitting around in the garden having a drink and chatting. It is a very relaxed, friendly place for a visit - entrance is free, you can wander around the workshops and see the potters at work. 

There is a shop selling their pots along with jewellery, glassware, and paintings made by other local craftspeople, together with a cafe where you can buy homemade refreshments.




********
Update
My computer is working very well with thanks to my eldest son, and my granddaughter's boyfriend, but my blogger problems continue when creating new posts. There was nothing basically wrong with the computer, it was all down to my blog. However, I have discovered that I can only write new posts as long as I sign out of blogger and then sign back in again. It is a nuisance, but it is the only way that I have found which enables me to continue with the blog. 
I returned home late last night after a long journey - my head is full of the many exciting things seen, but, I am unable to process them, as my mind has not yet caught up with my body. 
The national flower of the country visited.

'Cotswold Farm' Gardens - visited 5th February 2018

Common Snowdrop Galanthus Nivalis
As Mother Nature lifts her winter veil those much loved harbingers of Spring, the snowdrops, are once again nodding their heads in greeting. In February many gardens open their gates to the public giving anyone who is interested a chance to catch these first signs of spring. 
In this area of the Cotswolds there are five particularly renowned snowdrop gardens. Having shown two of them - Newark Park in 2013 and the Rococo Gardens in 2016 this third one has a completely different ambience. The house and the garden were both designed in the local vernacular 'Cotswold Arts and Crafts' style overlooking a quiet valley. In the 1930s, Norman Jewson, the Arts and Crafts architect/designer used local stone for the garden terraces which gradually descend down the side of the valley.

The house was originally a small Cotswold stone farmhouse with a stone barn and cow byre forming a small farmyard. The original farmhouse dates back over 300 years but the stone barns were added 100 years later. In 1900 the house was doubled in size, and then in 1926 Sydney Barnsley, the eminent Cotswold architect/designer was employed to add two new wings in the 'Arts and Crafts' style. Norman Jewson at that time was his assistant, but eventually became responsible for completing the work following Barnsley's death. 

 Chimonanthus praecox - wintersweet - Japanese allspice - native to China 

The garden holds  62 different varieties of snowdrop - these are Galanthus Hill Poe

It is extremely difficult to photograph the underside of a snowdrop without lying on the cold ground so this snowdrop was brought indoors. 

Galanthus Natalie Garton

The terracing gently leads you down to the foot of the valley and the Bog garden.

I do hope that the blight on this Box topiary has the same strain of disease that my plants suffered from. To my delight, and most curiously, my box balls have now completely recovered and regrown.

dwarf Iris alida

Helleborus argutifolius 

 Leucojum vernum - spring snowflake 

Although this pretty little flower is a member of the same family as a snowdrop and is a similar size it has 6 corolla (petals) all of the same length, whereas the common snowdrop Galanthus nivalis has three main petals and three more tiny inner ones. 

The entrance driveway lined with staddle stones.

Blackwell

 

Blackwell is a stunning Arts & Crafts House built for a northern industrial baron, Sir Edward Holt, the owner of a prosperous brewery in Manchester.
Overlooking Lake Windermere it was designed as a holiday home for the Holt family by architect Mackay Hugh Baillie Scott, and is considered a masterpiece of early twentieth century design.

Happily Blackwell still retains an outstanding amount of surviving decorative arts and crafts details through lack of modernisation. After the Holts lost their son in the First World War they used Blackwell less and less. They had a skeleton staff of servants keeping an eye on the property, but rarely visited.  During the Second World War pupils from a school in Liverpool were evacuated there, and after the war the school continued until finally closing in 1976. Blackwell was leased to English Nature, the government agency who promoted the conservation of wildlife and geology. They boarded up the fireplaces and covered much of the decoration with filing cabinets thus ensuring that the Arts and Crafts elements were preserved.

Lakeland Arts Trust now manages Blackwell - they encourage you to stroll around the house at your leisure, relax in the cosy inglenook fireplaces whilst reading their good selection of Arts and Crafts books, or sit on the window seats in each room and enjoy the magnificent Lakeland views

Peacock wallpaper frieze by Shand Kydd was installed in 1906 - I suspect that the copper lamps were made by W.A.S Benson

Sideboard and Hessian wallhanging both designed by Baillie Scott - the background has faded, originally it was dark blue not brown

Baillie Scott saw the fire on dark winter days as a substitute for the sun - its cheerfulness akin to the delight sunlight brings.

A terracotta bust of Ruskin, the leading Victorian English art critic, art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist and prominent social thinker and philanthropist. His home, Brantwood, lies nearby on the shores of Coniston Water which can also be visited

Rowan leaves and berries form a dominant decorative theme particularly in the White Drawing Room

Emerging from the darker more masculine wood panelled rooms, the White Drawing Room has a much lighter more feminine touch. The moulded plaster work may contain some references to past Elizabethan interiors but the most powerful impression is one of modernity, and very different from the gloomy tones and clutter of a typical Victorian parlour

An oak barrel chair inlaid with ebony by Baillie Scott

The bay window overlooking Windermere has been likened to the bridge of a ship

Lustre ware dish by renown Arts and Crafts potter Willam De Morgan

Last post from the Lake District