A Brief History of Caughley Porcelain

Caughley Porcelain was established in Shropshire in 1772 on the banks of the river Severn near Ironbridge, the area that gave birth to the industrial revolution and is now designated a World Heritage Site. Caughley produced fashionable blue and white tableware, introducing the well-loved Chinese inspired Willow Pattern design. Its fisherman design forms the basis of the present company logo.

The present company premises are in Hallow Worcester and are just 5 miles from the old Royal Worcester works. All our employees worked in various skills at the R W factory sculptors-casters-fettlers-and painters etc. They are true artisians in fine bone china in the true traditional ways of their old employers.

Over the past 25 years Caughley has specialised in making equestrian figures in English bone china, a medium chosen for its durability and because it allows great detail to be modelled into the figure. We use a traditional on-glaze painting process where 5 separate hand painted coats are fired and fused into the glaze. This gives a finish that will retain its colour for hundreds of years, unlike modern resin figures. The whole process has remained relatively unchanged for over 250 years, virtually the only change has been that electric kilns have replaced the old charcoal fired bottle kilns.

These are dying skills. As the rest of the world moves to mass production we are still carefully producing individual models that can be handed down from generation to generation.