The LeachPottery

Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada founded the pottery at Higher Stennack in 1920; since 2004 it has been run by an independent charitable trust, with the working studio trading through a subsidiary whose profits return to the trust. The studio team still makes the Leach Standard Ware range — wheel-thrown functional tableware fired to 1300°C in reduction — under lead potter Roelof Uys, with a run of recent apprentices behind him. The museum and galleries, including the Grade II listed climbing kiln and the Old Pottery, closed in November 2025 for a major restoration of the site, with reopening expected between late 2026 and spring 2027; in the meantime the shop trades six days a week and the throwing courses — one-day tasters to three-day form-and-function schools, taught in groups of five — carry on in the purpose-built teaching studios.