Exciting Collaboration with Local Ceramic Artists!

Exciting Collaboration with Local Ceramic Artists!

Harvesting our clay for pottery

We’re currently planning a collaboration with local ceramic artists to host a series of wood-fired ceramics activities at Meadow Orchard Community Garden in Crouch End. We've had a lot of interest in using our onsite clay subsoil—pure yellow London Clay—for low fired ceramics.

Though the site has little topsoil and is prone to waterlogging, its clay offers a unique opportunity for ceramic artistry. This collaboration will bring together local artists and volunteers to explore wood firing, a low-tech, community-driven process. Stay tuned for updates on upcoming workshops!

How to get involved

If you would be interested in attending the workshops this spring, please Email us, to register your interest, also if you would like to involved in harvesting local wild clays, processing material, sculpting, pinch / coil pots and partaking in the barrel firing to make the completed ceramics. We can accommodate around ten to twelve at workshops, so unfortunately places will be limited. 

Clay test pit

We’ve already dug a little test pit so our local potter friends can process the clay, fire some test pieces and get more idea how well the clay will fire in the lower temperatures in a wood pit or barrel firing. Initial tests look great, we are very excited! We can’t wait to see the results! The clay is super sticky and malleable, all the kinds of thing that are great for pottery but bad for growing plants!

A small sample pot was fired previously, this gave a good colour and really started getting us excited with the project, however it wasn’t much of a gauge to see how larger pieces will stand up to the violent firing process in a wood firing, a fast rise in temperature. To help prevent cracking in the firing, the next step is to add “grog” to the clay to help it survive the thermal shock from the rapid temperature change. To make grog, we will fire some flint (found on site naturally) in a kiln.

London Geology is interesting, digging around North London, Finchley and Muswell Hill in particular results in a lot of London Clay mixed in with Flint and Chalk, also known as Boulder Clay, It’s full of remnants from it’s glacial past, (fossilised sea creatures) from when it was largely frozen seabed!

London Clay

Discovering our local geology is far more fun when armed with a trowel, a spade and in our case a 200mm diameter well auger…(don’t ask!). The unique geology has led to local brick pits for harvesting clay and of particular local interest was the recent replica Roman Kiln at nearby Highgate Wood (https://www.highgateromankiln.org.uk/).

As a permaculture site, we are naturally attracted to sustainable, low impact, locally sourced materials, with a strawbale / cob, clay built roundhouse, and a puddled clay natural pond on site, harvesting our own wild clay for pottery is clearly the next step.

We didn’t really need much encouragement and the thought of combining biomass, fire, some kind of improvised kiln or pit kiln to fire the ceramics was just too intriguing not to explore. An enquiry on a facebook group, soon put us in touch with local creatives, artists and ceramicist who were also intrigued at the prospect!

Using clay is also terrifically engaging and after getting to grips with the material it’s really therapeutic too. Working with clay is such a lovely group activity, watching how people respond to the material, play and learn.

Harvested Clay prior to processing

Super sticky London clay!