Cardew Carries On

It was a very sad day for “Cardew Design” back in March last year when they had the necessity to call in “administrative receivers” to the company they had built up over thirteen years (definitely unlucky for some!)

On a more positive note, they were able to keep the company going under this regime and in June successfully sold their fourteen-acre site to a local land developer.

This sale enabled the company to pay off the vast majority of its debts and gave Paul Cardew and Peter Kirvan the chance to step forward again.

The outcome was that they negotiated a lease from the new landlord on the site and established “Crafts at Cardew”.

It was sadly necessary to “downsize” the new company in terms of its staff numbers and general costs. However, this new beginning gave Paul and Peter the chance to re-think their future strategy and consequently the direction that “Crafts at Cardew” was to take.

The new company now concentrates on four prime business activities.

First it has maintained its very successful “visitor” centre retailing ceramic gifts, running the wonderful “Madhatters” restaurant and most importantly, offering visitors the chance to paint their own ceramic piece at the pottery. This emphasis on active ceramic crafts as entertainment has in recent years proved very successful and has been expanded from the U.K.’s largest children’s Pottery Painting Activity area (it seats 150 kids!) to the launch this Easter of an adult orientated Ceramic Studio where a visitor can create their own teapot (or vase, mug or bowl) from liquid clay to the finished work of ceramic art.

The success of these activities had led Cardew into a second and growing business providing other leisure retailers with once fired white “bisque” pottery ornaments for their customers to paint. The company’s children’s range is reputed to be second to none in the world and includes a unique licence to produce Disney designs like “Winnie the Pooh”. So you will find this new Cardew range in many of the Pottery Cafes and Studios springing up around the U.K. and also in dedicated Pottery Painting Activity Areas in holiday camps (Butlins and Pontins for example) and theme parks (Woodlands, Paultons Park and many more).

They also produce special “Pottery Painting Gift Packs” which contain a pre-fired pottery ornament (like a “Disney Princess”) acrylic paints, a paint brush, decorating instructions, and a pot of PVA varnish to give the decorated ornament a glazed finish without recourse to heating or firing.

These packs sell to gift and craft retailers and have been produced as exclusive ranges for the likes of “Waitrose”, “Whittards”, “RNLI” and “BBC Children in Need” Pudsey Bear!

As Paul Cardew commented “It’s great to be involved in this rapidly growing area of ceramics and once again, seeing success driven by the quality of our designs”.

The third area in which Cardew operates is “customised ceramics” using their creative skills to develop dedicated designs for just about any company that has reason to want its own teapot, mug, or indeed anything ceramic. Over the last year Cardew has produced mug designs for “Rick Stein” in Padstow, “Boots” and many regional hotels, restaurants and other businesses.

Last, but by no means least, Cardew still make the odd (very odd!) teapot. (Indeed their dedication to that little fellow with a spout and handle also led Paul and Peter to launch Cardewclub.com!)

Paul Cardew plans to develop two to three very special, very low limited edition designs every year, which will only be available to collectors via “Cardewclub.com”.

Cardew also works with “Enesco” the worldwide gift company to produce a special range of Disney teapots and rumour has it further new design releases are going to come through this channel in 2005.

Said Paul Cardew “One of the upsides of our difficulties was that we ended up being able to stay in ceramics but explore new avenues. On the teapot side of things, working directly with collectors is great because they really want you to stretch your design abilities and imagination to the maximum. That’s definitely the sort of challenge I relish and will keep me happily designing teapots for hopefully years to come!”.