Nairn Studio Pottery

Nairn Pottery was produced from 1962 to 1992 in the ancient burgh of Nairn, which is situated on the Moray Firth coast, sixteen miles east of Inverness. It was founded, owned and worked throughout its life by a talented couple, Gordon Macintyre (1931-2016) and his wife Muriel (1930-2009).

Founding and Development of the Nairn Pottery

Gordon was born into an old Nairnshire family. He trained as an hotelier, a career he followed throughout his working life. Muriel was born in Bombay, India where her father was joint owner of a woollen mill. She accompanied her mother back to England in 1945 and the family settled in Harrogate, her father, Arthur Staynes, establishing a wool broking business in Bradford. In the early 1950s he returned to Karachi as an Adviser to the new Government in Pakistan. His time there ended tragically at Christmas 1962, when, under Ayub Kahn’s military junta, he was brutally murdered. Muriel was very close to her father and his tragic death had a traumatic effect on her from which she never fully recovered. Muriel had begun her career as a music teacher in Bexhill on Sea in the 1950s, having obtained degrees at the London School of Dalcroze Eurythmics and the Royal Academy of Music. Gordon was “enduring” his spell of National Service which he disliked in Harrogate, but there was one saving grace – in 1951 he met his future wife, Muriel, at a Scottish dance in Harrogate. After an “on-off” relationship they finally met up again in London and married in Harrogate on Easter Monday 1956. They then lived in London until after their first child, Symon, was born and became aware of the existence of the Chelsea Pottery, which ran an “open studio” system where anyone could work and learn. Both the ethos of the pottery and the creative possibilities of clay appealed to them and Gordon went to the pottery at every opportunity, learning a great deal as he did so. The Chelsea Pottery made a variety of wares, but was probably best known for its colourful bowls and plaques decorated by a method known as “inlay and overlay.” It was this decorative technique that Gordon and Muriel Macintyre went on to adopt for many of the pots they later created at Nairn, where, inspired by his experience at Chelsea, Gordon was keen to set up a pottery for himself and Muriel.

In 1959 the Macintyres decided to make the move from London to Nairn, where Gordon’s mother and sister were running the Clifton House Hotel, his father having died in 1952. Gordon began working there, learning much about the skills of running a successful hotel from his sister. Initially no house was available in Nairn, so the family moved into a small cottage where a second son, Charles, was born and from where they could search for a property big enough to accommodate a growing family and have space for making and firing pots.

In 1961 the Macintyres bought Strathyre, a large eighteenth century stone-built
house where their daughter Ruth was born in 1965. A Victorian wing had been added, providing a comfortable home for the family, and also a spacious five-roomed semi-basement which was perfect for the pottery. Eventually it provided a clay room, drying room and main working room. Initially Gordon and Muriel had no plans to do anything other than express themselves in the new medium of clay, an artistic hobby they could share; they did not consider the possibility of it becoming a commercial concern.

Gordon’s knowledge of the technicalities of ceramic production was not sufficient to set up on their own immediately, so he spent from late September until Christmas 1961 “working each and every day at Chelsea Pottery and at the V&A, drawing, drawing, drawing”. Many of Gordon’s later designs were taken from those drawing books.

Teaching was not formal at Chelsea; students were shown processes and were able to observe professional potters and decorators including a part-time thrower at work, but there were no classes as such. In order to learn enough to set up his own pottery in Nairn, Gordon watched, listened and tried things out for himself, experimenting particularly with glazes and decorating techniques. He received a lot of help and advice from Joyce Morgan, who was originally a fabric designer and who became a business partner to David Rawnsley, the man behind Chelsea Pottery. She went on to become a professional potter and decorator at the pottery and was very helpful to Gordon. The open studio concept appealed to Gordon and influenced the way Nairn Pottery was to be run. In September 1962 Muriel also went down to Chelsea. She worked there until just before Christmas, when the horrific death of her father cut short her stay. By then, however, she had learned the many and varied aspects of working with clay, without which she could not have expressed her creativity.

Once settled in Strathyre, Muriel and Gordon began potting. Their first purchase in 1962 was a full-sized electric kiln obtained from Webcot, a firm in Stoke on Trent, whose owner, Bernard Webber, was very helpful to them. A few months later they obtained a wheel, but in the meantime they produced coil and slab pots, moulded and slip-cast forms, as well as modelled sculptural figures. They made their own moulds with plaster of Paris and throughout the life of the pottery used fine red Cornish clay, purchased by Bernard Webber and shipped up by train in ready-to-use state. Initially an opaque “Webcot” glaze was used, but they switched to zirconium silicate – more familiarly known as a maiolica or tin, glaze, which worked better for them and was less toxic. Other glazes were purchased from Blythe’s, one of which gave a transparent pale amber finish that proved particularly useful. Iron, copper and cobalt oxides were bought from both Webcot and Blythe’s.

Having begun to work for their own pleasure, Gordon and Muriel found that other people soon showed an interest in their pots. A notice on the gate at Strathyre resulted in visitors coming into the studio, watching the couple at work and often leaving with a pot. They soon realised more by accident than design that the pottery had potential as a commercial concern. It wasn’t, however, in their nature to see such an enterprise as simply a business.

Alongside working their pottery, Gordon and Muriel were actively involved in running the Clifton Hotel over a 40 year period. In 1969 they bought a large Victorian House called Tigh na Rosan, next door to Clifton House, and converted the garage into their new workshop with a showroom onto the street. This was, however, to be their home for only four years. In 1973 they divided the house in two, selling one half but retaining the pottery and some accommodation attached to it, living there when not based in the hotel. In 1975 they built a very large self-contained studio between Tigh na Rosan and the Clifton Hotel and in the late 1970s sold the remaining portion of Tigh na Rosan. The studio was then converted into their new pottery described by Gordon as a “lovely place in which to work, light, airy and overlooking the sea.” It was also within the hotel gardens so the guests could wonder into the pottery if they wished – perhaps to buy a souvenir of their stay.

Rather than live “above the shop” all the time, the family also had a home in Geddes, an ancient hamlet a few miles from Nairn.

Any house lived in by the Macintyres was likely to contain surprises – a plaque on the wall, or a figure peering out among the plants. In one house, a Buddha squatted by a small pool, a salamander climbed up the wall and a slightly creepy head sat in a flower bed.