Inside Cheshire Clay Studios, where potters of every level find a home

Out in the countryside near Middlewich, at Lowes Farm on Moss Lane, a light-filled workshop is quietly nurturing a generation of Cheshire potters. Cheshire Clay Studios describes itself as a space for ceramicists and pottery enthusiasts, and since 2018 it has welcomed everyone from complete novices to experienced makers.

Co-founder Jean White has summed up the ethos neatly. "We all have a creative side and the Collective's ceramic studio is a large, light-filled place where people can come to us either as beginners or as long-term members and be nurtured on their artistic journey," she said, in comments reported when the studio staged an exhibition at Northwich's Lion Salt Works Museum.

That exhibition, which opened in October 2021, showed just how far the studio's members can take an idea. Inspired by the salt beneath the Cheshire Plain, it featured work made by coiling, press moulding, slab building and throwing on the wheel, from salt pigs to a narrowboat and horses inspired by the Trent and Mersey Canal that runs past the museum.

The studio is properly kitted out for serious making. Alongside eight pottery wheels there is a slab roller, a pugmill, dipping glazes, six electric kilns and two raku kilns, the kind of set-up few hobby potters could ever justify at home.

That is the thinking behind its studio membership, which offers flexible access to a fully equipped ceramics studio for anyone who wants the space without the cost or hassle of running their own. Members benefit from supervised studio sessions each week, with supervisors on hand to help newcomers settle in.

For those not ready to commit, there are structured courses too. Wednesday morning and Wednesday evening classes run in six-week terms, and the studio has hosted specialist short courses and workshops, including pottery painting and decoration sessions, as well as visiting tutors.

As autumn settles in, there are worse ways to spend a dark evening than with your hands in clay and a kiln warming the room. For anyone who has ever fancied making their own mugs, bowls or sculptural pieces, this is a friendly place to begin.

Cheshire Clay Studios is at Lowes Farm, Moss Lane, Middlewich CW10 9NG. Classes and membership details at cheshireclay.com.