Our story
From one wheel to a full timetable.
Marlpit began when Nell Kershaw rented half of an old joinery unit to make tableware, and neighbours kept asking whether they could have a go on the wheel. That was 2017. A Saturday taster turned into a waiting list, and the second half of the unit became the classroom.
Today there are seven wheels, a long table under the windows for drawing and printing, two electric kilns in a locked room of their own, and a shelf for nearly everyone who has ever made something here.
The idea has not changed: small groups, proper materials and patient teaching, so first-timers leave with a pot they are proud of.
How we teach
Four things we keep to.
Groups you can teach
Seven at the wheels and up to ten at the long table, so a tutor gets round everyone several times a session.
Laid out before you arrive
Clay, tools, aprons, glazes, paper and inks are ready on the tables when you walk in.
Room to get it wrong
Collapsed pots go back in the reclaim bucket. Nobody minds, and that is how centring is learned.
One tutor per course
A seven-week group has Nell from its first evening to its seventh, always on the same weekday.
The tutors
Who teaches at Marlpit.
Each tutor teaches the craft they practise. Read more about them, and which classes they run.
All about the tutors
Clay
Sample
Nell Kershaw
Founder, wheel and glaze
Clay
Sample
Walter Briggs
Hand-building and kilns
Paint and print
Sample
Rory Whitlow
Drawing, painting and print
Young makers
Sample
Farah Javed
Young makers clay club
Kind words
What students tell us.
My first pot leans like a tired tower and I love it. Nell had the whole row laughing before anyone had centred a thing.
By the fourth evening I could centre without help. The glazing night was worth the course on its own.
Carved a heron, printed twenty cards and went home with inky thumbs. Calm, friendly and well organised.
Our two count down to Saturday. The clay hedgehogs now guard every windowsill in the house.
Ready when you are
Bring your hands. We bring the clay.
Choose a class and a date, and we will get back to you to confirm, usually the same evening, and always by the next afternoon.