Moorcroft sees off downturn with record sales of pottery

Moorcroft, an art pottery business selling handmade vases at £800 apiece, would not, at first glance, appear to have good prospects in a recession.

However, Hugh Edwards, its chairman, said the Stoke-on-Trent business had been achieving record sales since the credit crunch started. As a result, the company, in which he has a majority stake, made profits of about £1.1m in 2008 compared with £834,000 in 2007.

Speaking in an office crammed with intricately decorated pottery, Mr Edwards said: “I like to think people buy our products because they are beautiful, but value is another reason.” Moorcroft’s ornamental china, over decades, has beaten inflation and is therefore seen as an alternative investment by some collectors.

Its decorative style is instantly recognisable, fusing elements of William Morris’s English Arts and Crafts movement with French Art Nouveau. Motifs are sinuous and swirling, with shapes defined using tube lining – raised ridges on the surfaces of the pots. Colours are bright and jewel-like. Flowers and exotic animals are common subjects.

Moorcroft is one of the historic brands alongside The Poole Pottery and Clarice Cliff that is recognisable to viewers of TV programmes such as The Antiques Roadshow. Mr Edwards said the exposure had helped sales. At the same time “we have held ourselves back from increasing production in order to maintain margin”.

Moorcroft had collapsed after a move downmarket when Mr Edwards, a City lawyer and ceramics connoisseur, bought the business in 1986. Its revival is the result of his passion for Moorcroft design, which gave him an intimate understanding of collectors’ tastes.

Mr Edwards admires the resilience of mass producers such as Churchill China. But he does not regard them as being in the same business as Moorcroft, whose 115 staff include its corps of well-paid tubeliners and painters, who sign each piece of their work.

“Moorcroft is all about stories and dreams,” Mr Edwards said. He has revived the brand partly by nurturing the loyalty of collectors. He has published a series of lavishly illustrated books about the company and set up a collectors’ club that gives access to limited editions. Elise Adams, an ambitious fine art graduate, quadrupled membership of the club when she ran it, earning herself promotion to managing director.