Latest news with #TheGreatPotteryThrowdown
Telegraph
25-03-2025
- General
- Telegraph
‘Our Welsh chapel cost £200k but we'll spend six times that doing it up'
'Don't be horrified!' A command that Keith Brymer-Jones and Marj Hogarth have issued a lot during their three-year mission to rescue an enormous dilapidated chapel and Sunday school in North Wales. Seeing the horror on others' faces at the enormity of their undertaking has been just one of many challenges they've had to overcome during their painstaking restoration process. Then six months ago, after arriving from one of their regular seven-hour drives up from Whitstable to Pwllheli, their architect Rhodri said the very same three words to them. 'We went in and found one corner of the floor in the chapel was covered in fungus,' says Hogarth. 'It was like an enchanted forest,' interjects Brymer-Jones, 58. Their long war on dry rot had resulted in this display: once it has been treated and is on its way out, the fungus fights back and 'fruits'; this was its last dying gasp at glory. Did the couple despair, I ask as we chat over Zoom? They look at each other with a wry smile. 'I think in the process you're constantly despairing,' says Hogarth, 57. 'And that never leaves you. I don't think the fear of dry rot or water ingress will ever leave me.' Would they have taken it on knowing what they know now? 'Absolutely,' they chorus. In a lot of ways, the pair have majorly strayed from their original brief; to find Brymer-Jones a bigger studio space for his pottery. Fans of The Great Pottery Throwdown will be familiar with the big-hearted clay spinner, known for his ready stream of tears. He and partner Hogarth, an actress and creative, were ready to find their forever home, their first they'd owned together. During the pandemic they found Chapel Salem online. The Grade-II listed chapel, built in 1827, had been empty for 14 years, with no central heating or hot water. Huge in size, the two halls alone total 6,500 square feet. They bought it for £200k cash, but then had to wait another 10 months for the change of use and planning permission to come through. During that time the building deteriorated further – a complete staircase was lost to dry rot. Another £20k was needed to remove the pigeon poo that had built up above the wooden ceiling of the chapel and Sunday school. This, and their forays into the local community, were captured in the first series of Channel 4's Our Welsh Chapel Dream, which outlined their plans not only to build a home and studio for themselves, but also to make the main chapel into a space for everybody in Pwllheli. Thirty skips of dry rot wood later and filming on the second series has just wrapped. Two weeks ago they were able to sleep in their bedroom for the first time. Previously they'd been sleeping in a bed in a shipping container outside when visiting ('If you spend the night in the pub before you use it, the bed is fine,' says Hogarth). A week ago they washed in hot water for the first time. With phase one to build their own living quarters underneath the Sunday school hall complete, they're focusing on phase two; getting Brymer-Jones's studio upstairs up and running by the end of the year. 'I need to get making pots so I can start making money,' says Brymer-Jones. Right now the pair are still in his rented studio in Whitstable, surrounded by packing. 'We're about 16 pallets away from getting the last bits out. It's a mess!' Phase three will be the main chapel hall – 'The biggest challenge,' says Brymer-Jones. The pews need to come out so the whole floor can be levelled. The 15 40-foot-high windows all need to be replaced. And that's before they get to their dream of having trees growing in moveable trugs in the 70-foot-high chapel, the pulpit moved slightly, and a catering kitchen installed. Then they will be ready for exhibitions, farmers' markets, bingo… 'I've got this vision in my head – and I'm going to start crying – of just having all the old folk in the town coming in for a massive Christmas dinner. It would be brilliant. Marj is cooking so it's fine,' he laughs. But a building this size will always need something doing. 'It's a bit like a knife in my heart when people say: 'It will be lovely when it's finished.' Because I don't know what that means. What does that look like?' says Hogarth. An ability to compartmentalise has been essential. Brymer-Jones has found himself chunking it down like he does production throwing. 'I remember standing up on the scaffolding and thinking, yeah, there's a lot to do. But then you break it down. If you have 1,000 pots to make, that is only 10 100s. And 100 pots is only 10 10s. That's how you manage the building as well.' As a result, the pair are positively glowing with pride at reaching the end of phase one. Kitchen, snug, bathroom, bedroom and guest bedroom are all ready, inspired by their shared love of 1950s and 1960s design. 'We've gone for capsule colours; each room has the skirting, ceiling and walls all the same colour,' says Brymer-Jones. The kitchen walls are Pantone C32 red: 'The best red ever,' he says. The pale pink metal units are by English Rose, a long-term dream for Hogarth: 'They were made in the 1950s by the same people who made aeroplanes.' With new heat pumps, underfloor heating, solar panels and a full rewiring, they've surely added to the value of the property. Not that they will ever sell. They are happily resigned to it being their own personal money pit for years to come. 'We'll probably spend at least five or six times what we bought it for. We've accepted that,' says Brymer-Jones. 'I could do with going into the jungle on I'm a Celebrity. As I would be eating bugs I'd just be thinking of all the windows it would pay for,' he laughs. Already the town has seen an economic trickle-down from the popularity of the first series. 'It's quite odd, but there was a survey done quite recently on the town. And since we bought the building, some of the cafes and shops have seen their business go up 60 per cent. It's mad. I'm not even making a pot there yet,' says Brymer-Jones. Their 89-year-old-neighbour, who keeps an eye out for their post, messages them about what he calls 'the Salem pilgrims'; groups of tourists who walk up the hill to take photographs. Theirs has certainly not been a low-key arrival. They don't want to just own the largest building in the area, but be part of the landscape themselves. Eventually, Brymer-Jones plans to offer apprenticeships and work to local people. They are aware of not wanting to be seen as ' the patronising English couple' says Hogarth: 'We have to be part of the community.' Welsh language is a work in progress. They've been advised it's best to just go to the pub rather than take formal lessons. Not everyone will approve of their plans, but without their time and investment, what future did the building have? Eventually, it would have been torn down, they say. For Hogarth, it creates an interesting debate about the relevance of listing buildings. 'Unless there's money to protect these listed buildings, it puts people off buying them.' No interview with Brymer-Jones would be complete without a few tears. True to form there've been some emotional moments. Just thinking about the bespoke copper sprinkler system they've installed gets him going: 'It's just wonderful'. On the subject of their builders' craftsmanship, tears come. But it is when I ask him what the highlight of the whole project has been that Brymer-Jones really starts trembling. 'Doing it with Marj,' he says with a loving look, 'It's been great. It's been our own project.' Hogarth adds: 'As much as it's really hard and really expensive, it's been an enormous privilege to see our ideas made flesh and bone. Not everyone will get the chance to do that.' Before and after: How they did it The Snug Painted in an indigo blue, the couple wanted a dark colour that would make the enormous 100sqm 'snug' feel cosy. Having lost the original parquet to dry rot, they commissioned Welsh company Broadleaf to make 7,000 new tiles, which were deliberately aged in a tumbling barrel to knock some of the straight edges off. 'When the new parquet was laid the colour just sang. Heaven,' says Marj. Individual seating and dining areas break the space up. The Mid Century sideboard is by Avalon, a British company that fittingly used to make church pews. The Ercol day bed in front of the wood burner was reupholstered by Hogarth as was the sheepskin chair in front of a feature wall of Brutalist-inspired tiles made by Brymer-Jones. The Jotul woodburner going in was a highlight: 'Seeing heat and flames come into the building was really wonderful,' says Brymer-Jones. 'I love that it looks like an old fashioned 1950s television and it's really efficient as well.' The black and white rug is a Florence Broadhurst design. 'The weird story is that she was murdered in 1977 in Sydney, Australia where she resided and they never found the culprit but they think it was a serial killer. It's a really dark interesting story, which we quite like,' says Brymer-Jones. 'But it isn't why we bought it,' adds Hogarth. The bathroom The Victorian parlour inspired bathroom is more than just a place for a soak. As well as a leather Chesterfield, there's a drinks trolley and a standard lamp. 'When you're an adult you forget that it's your space to do whatever you want,' says Brymer-Jones. They think of it as a living room with a bath in it. 'There's also another wood burner in the blackside of the bathroom and I enjoy my evenings with a whisky on the sofa talking to Marj who's in the bath.' The cast iron bath dates from 1954 and came from a bungalow renovation in Halifax. While the adjoining shower room is painted pink, the bathroom is black and retains the original dark red terracotta tiles. Brymer-Jones splurged on industrial wall lights sourced from a 1940s Japanese cargo ship. 'They're brilliant; they look like something out of Blade Runner.'
BBC News
07-02-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Great Pottery Throwdown judge hopeful for pottery industry
The Great Pottery Throwdown judge and ceramics designer, Keith Brymer Jones, has said the ceramics industry needs to adapt, following the collapse of the Royal Stafford also lamented the loss of a workforce which had "hundreds of years of combined experience".Administrators appointed on Tuesday said without the guarantee of a profitable order book there was nothing that could be done to save the Brymer Jones said "joined-up thinking", led by the government, was needed, but other countries, such as Germany, had successfully turned around their ceramics industries. He said he did not know much about the situation at Royal Stafford, which was based in he said the loss of another big pottery business "was not really a surprise", given rising energy prices."You just have more hoops to go through," he said. "You just wonder when it's going to end."The collapse of the company has resulted in 83 people losing their jobs and Mr Brymer Jones said: "They're not only their jobs, but we're losing, as a nation, their accumulated skill set."He said Stoke-on-Trent had been "neglected for so long" and the ceramics industry had been "decimated in the 1990s and early 2000s".But he saw hope the Labour government would do something to help and said: "We all have to move on and the 21st Century is what it is, but we can adapt.""We just need that direct, joined-up thinking from the government."Tristram Hunt, the former MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, said he was also told the BBC: "There are still good businesses and a lot of excitement in the design community around ceramics, and we have to thank Keith Brymer Jones and others for assisting with that."But he added: "The raw economics of ceramics production in an era of such high energy costs is obviously punishing."He said ceramics were the "lifeblood" of Stoke-on-Trent and also called for government help. Follow BBC Stoke & Staffordshire on BBC Sounds, Facebook, X and Instagram.
