Hornsea Hound

Hornsea Pottery comes from Hornsea. I don’t know what marketing wunderkind they had on the payroll back then, but his genius is surpassed only by cleaning company Spruce Springclean and Melbourne’s very own Just Falafs.

The name stuck. Say it now and you’re more likely to know the pottery than its namesake. What they lacked in branding creativity they made up for in killer products. This is a company that spanned just over five decades and barely put a foot wrong. From their 50s Elegance range to 70s trailblazers Saffron, Heirloom, Bronte, Fleur and Tapestry and on to the 80s Midas, they were aesthetically unmatched. They went off course with the woefully misguided Oceana range, but it was the 90s and weren’t we all a little bit underwhelming (see Boyzone or literally ANY photo of me between the ages of 8 to 17).

Can’t win ‘em all.

Nowadays, the tricky ones to find are your mugs and bowls – mugs because teacups, I imagine, were part of the good china set and reserved for special use and bowls because, breakfast. How the plates made it through unscathed is anyone’s guess. They’re dime a dozen and not nearly as popular, possibly because they rarely featured any of the iconic patterning, making them about as exciting as kmart crockery. In short, your everyday items (sans plates) were more likely to have been broken leaving them in shorter supply and priced accordingly.

Get your rarer items and pair them with a rare colour and you move into another price bracket. Autumn Brown Heirloom, beautiful as it is (and still relatively tricky to get your hands on in good nick) is less expensive than the Lakeland Green, and you can double that price for a midnight blue. Want a white and black Heirloom (only released as a trial) and you’ll need to send your kids to public.

And don’t get me started on the cruet sets. These guys hit me in the ovaries and feature some of the most ridiculously beautiful patterns you’ve ever seen, or may ever see, in your lifetime. You might as well forget these. They’re not in Australia unless you hit up an elderly expat and the postage fees from the UK are criminal. If you REALLY want one, my advice is to book a flight and pick them up yourself.

Shutup. Just shut up.

Like any great brand, they’ve had their imitators. Saying Orla Kiely “borrows” from Hornsea is generous. How she’s avoided a lawsuit is beyond me. Doesn’t mean I don’t find her stuff cute (I’ve got some so I’m in no position to criticise) but it does feel a little bit like buying a Guschi bag, if you get my drift.

Straight up theft.

Buy Hornsea and be prepared for crazing. And sure, the experts will class it as a flaw, but what do they know? You try expanding and contracting for 50 years and not feeling the effects. Which is pretty much what crazing is. Basically, your hunk of burning hornsea love gets stressed out when the body shrinks less than the actual glaze (while your cuppa cools, for instance) and makes these little crackles across the surface.

Do the opposite (the body shrinks more) and you get shivering. This one is far rarer, and probably should be classed as a flaw, by experts and laymen alike.

Give it a crack.

So how do you stop it happening on your Hornsea? Don’t use it. Store it on a shelf somewhere out of reach and look at it occasionally, but not too hard because the heat generated by your smoldering love for it is enough to cause crazing. Just use the stuff and learn to love the wrinkles. You’ll have some of your own one day.