About Pinfold Pottery

My maiden name was Potter and I seem to have been making things with clay ever since I was a small child. What started as a hobby became a therapy when I was ill a couple of years ago and is now proving to be a flexible and thoroughly enjoyable small business.

The stoneware hedgehogs came first – from small babies of a couple of centimetres to giants of two feet – but I am a keen gardener and wanted to create outdoor planters that showed off my plants at their best. My textured stonewares and earthy colours don’t overpower the plants and I often design a pot with a particular plant in mind.

The material itself and the firing process create pots that are relatively impervious to water and resilient to the extremes of weather and temperature – ideal for gardens but also kitchen window sills.

My work is still evolving – chickens and ducks have been popular recently and I am enjoying experimenting with human figures and other animals such as sheep. The Gallery shows several examples and it will be interesting to see how these ideas develop.

I hope that you like what I do – I welcome any comments and hope that you will buy from me at one of the garden or craft events in the coming months.



Clare Farley

PS A pinfold was traditionally an enclosure where stray animals were kept until claimed. Our village pinfold is alongside my home and is now my kiln house – it is continuing its tradition by storing all my early hedgehogs and chickens before they are claimed too!