Well, we’re very much getting in to the spirit of things down here at The Corn Exchange on The Pantiles, as we are going to use the Easter weekend as the culmination of a project to bring back the production – and sale – of locally made Tunbridge Ware for the first time in many, many years.
The trade, as you may well know, thrived during the 19th century, with many of the original items being sold from shops on The Parade, as it was then known. Many of them were also made in the vicinity, at manufactories dotted around The Common and along Frant Road.
The popularity of Tunbridge Ware peaked in and around the 1860’s, having been promoted at Queen Victoria’s fabled Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace. Prior to that it had tended to cater mostly for ‘souvenir’ pieces aimed at the annual influx of well-to-do tourists who descended on the town to indulge in its annual season of (mostly) seemly festivities and functions. As production became increasingly streamlined however, more utilitarian items for domestic use were made – sewing and work boxes, tea caddies, gaming tables – although the use of sometimes fantastically intricate decoration was retained, even for these more ‘everyday’ wares.
Ultimately, although the businesses remained viable in to the decades after the First World War, interest from consumers was already in decline before it was dealt a terminal blow by the advent of the Art Deco movement in the 1920’s. Suddenly, everything had to be modern, forward thinking and entirely ‘a la mode’ – and the rather homespun appeal of what was little more than a cottage industry lost its appeal.
Anyway, since we installed ourselves down on The Pantiles, we’ve made a point of collecting and curating as good a selection of Tunbridge Ware as we can muster, purely and simply because it’s a truly wonderful craft and warranted being put back front and centre on what is very much its home turf.
We then determined to do some concerted ‘research and development’, and were able to produce some rather remarkable brand new pieces which very closely followed the spirit and principles of the original Tunbridge Ware manufacturers. And, to close the circle, we have now decided to make these pieces available for purchase down here, along with some additional exceptional hand-crafted ornamental wooden pieces from an associated manufactory.
So – initially just for the four days of the upcoming Easter weekend – new Tunbridge Ware will be on sale on our very own stall, right outside the site of one of the original shops – and immediately opposite the steps which lead down to our current headquarters in The Corn Exchange.
We’re extremely excited to bring this wonderful, local craft back to life, and very much hope that you can come down and take a look over the extended holiday weekend.
