The UglyBarn

Marija Bichan set up The Ugly Barn in Ditchling in 2019, the year her mentor Ralph Levy, who ran the well-known Handmade House pottery studio in the village, died. Working from Wharfedale Cottage on The Fieldway, she offers open studio sessions for potters with existing experience alongside one-to-one tuition and small group classes for beginners. The studio is deliberately smaller and more focused than Levy's former operation rather than a direct replacement for it. Bichan describes it as a quiet place to work at your own pace, with guidance available when needed rather than a fixed teaching timetable. Classes cover handbuilding and wheel techniques, continuing a pottery tradition connected to Ditchling's earlier Arts and Crafts history.