Some years ago Chris and Geoff Cox, potters from Penruddock, had an ambition - to make Cumbria the ceramics centre of the UK. In 1994 they organised the first potters' market ever held in the UK and the Penrith Potfest was born.

By 2000 the venue [Skirsgill Mart] was becoming too small and a second event was added on an adjacent weekend - Potfest in the Park at Hutton-in-the-Forest.

In 2004 under the umbrella title of Cumbria Ceramica, the two Potfests were bridged by a series of free demonstrations and have a go workshops at Newton Rigg. The festival was now ten days long and becoming one of the best ceramics festivals in Europe.

In early Summer of that year with the help of LEADER+, kiln builders of international repute were invited to build a number of wood fired kilns on the Newton Rigg campus. The college was producing acres of Willow as biomass to fire power stations. Woodash glazes are highly prized in some cultures and the woodfired kilns would be using local produce as fuel and providing a unique infrastructure for research. By the end of the Summer three different types of kiln were opperational adding to the growing perception that Cumbria is now becoming recognised as a major focus for ceramics in the UK.

The first kiln was based on the idea of a Japanese Naborigama. It has three chambers in a line with a grate at one end and a chimney at the other. As the first chamber becomes hot waste gasses on their wat to the chimney pre-heat chambers two and three. When the first one reaches temperature wood is stoked into the already hot second and then on to the third. This is a very efficient use of fuel and some traditional kilns in Japan might have ten or more chambers in a line. The second kiln was a traditional Japanese Anagama kiln. Designed over 1000 years ago to achieve special glazes as the wood ash produced melts over the pots an effect highly prized in Japan. The third was the simplest to build and fire. Still using wood as a fuel and this time salt thrown into the flame to achieve special orange peel glazes often asociated with traditional German ware.

Hopefully new wood fired kilns will be added each year adding to the Cumbrian ceramics festival but also providing a unique recourse for potters in the area and ceramics students from UCLAN and Cumbria Institute of the Arts. There are other kiln parks in Denmark and Hungary but the one in Penrith is unique in being totally wool fired. Others offer international residencies, symposiums and research fellowships. Undoubtably before too long Penrith will be doing the same.

What started out as primarily a regional potters' market in a cattle mart in Penrith is now a major focus for ceramics in the UK and an event of international stature attracting ceramic artists from all over Europe, some even coming from as far as Australia, New Zealand and Japan just to show their work in Penrith.

For more information check out the website www.potfest.co.uk

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