Blog

The Turning Earth Autumn Ceramics Market returns to the Leyton studio on the weekend of the 20th and 21st of September. With 60 different makers offering their handmade pieces over the two days, you can expect to find some crafted and unique treasures.

All the ingredients for the best weekend out are there: handmade pieces, live music, street food and drinks, wheel-throwing demonstrations, and some Sunday workshops.

On Sunday only, the talented Hanna Salomonsson will be back to teach how to hand-build intricate, delicate yet strong flowers. While our senior teacher Ben Sutton will run two raku-style firings: we will have pre-made vases for you to glaze, fire and take home at the end of the session. The spaces for all the workshops are limited, so book promptly.

But that’s not all. The whole neighbourhood will be buzzing with events and open studios over the weekend. For example, on Saturday 20th, the charity Furnishing Futures will open the doors of its warehouse and show you how they turn what might have been destined for landfill into beautiful, professionally designed spaces that support the recovery of women and children rehoused after domestic abuse. On Sunday 21st, Sharon Hennessy, founder of Suite Comfort 2024, will open her workshop doors and demonstrate the intricate processes that bring old seating pieces back to life, from stripping away old materials to carefully rebuilding each layer with precision and care.

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The Roman Kiln Replica Firing is scheduled for the 13th and 15th September, in collaboration with the charity Friends of Highgate Roman Kiln and London Open House. 

The collaboration between Turning Earth and FoHRK started last year, when the Turning Earth Highgate team undertook the very exciting project to forage wild clay from the woods, create Roman-style pottery based on archaeological findings from the area, and build a replica Roman-style kiln in the woods themselves. 

After having hosted several workshops over the last spring and summer months, there are many pieces finally ready to be fired. If you have missed those workshops, there is still one last chance on the 7th of September, in celebration of the local pottery heritage day. Some volunteers will run free drop-in hand-building workshops at the Information Hut, just next to Pavilion Cafe (Muswell Hill Rd, Onslow Gardens, London N10 3JN) and the kiln itself, from 11 am to 4 pm. 

The firing will be open to the public on both the 13th and 15th, and it’s a very unique experience to watch. The kiln will be lighted on Saturday around 7 am, and it will continue to burn until around 9 pm. After a day of cooling down, the kiln will then be opened and unpacked on Monday around 12 pm. 

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TURNING EARTH SUMMER SOSTICE SOCIAL
Celebrate Creativity and Community on the Summer Solstice

This summer, Turning Earth invites you to mark the longest day of the year with an unforgettable celebration of creativity, connection, and craft. On Saturday, 21st June 2025, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM, Turning Earth Leyton will host the Summer Solstice Social — a vibrant, hands-on event open to studio members, students past and present, and the general public.

Held in honour of the Summer Solstice, a day traditionally associated with abundance, growth, and renewal, the event celebrates the ancient art of pottery and its power to bring people together. Whether you have some previous experience or you are a complete beginner, you'll find something to spark your creativity and enjoy the day. 

The day’s programme includes:

• Handbuilding workshops (ticketed, 11 AM and 1 PM): in Sweden, there’s a very sweet tradition on Midsummer Night, to pick 7 flowers from 7 meadows, put them under your pillow while you sleep, and supposedly you’ll dream about the person you’ll marry. To celebrate this tradition with us, our lovely Swedish Hanna will guide you to sculpt some wonderful flowers.
• Live Raku-style pottery firings (ticketed, 11.30 AM and 1.30 PM): you will glaze some of our pre-made vases with special Raku glazes then you will assist the exciting and fiery firing. By the end of the session, your piece will be ready to be taken home.
• Throwing drop-in sessions (free): if you have never tried pottery before, this is your chance to have a go on the pottery wheel and feel moving clay under your hands (and realize how mistakenly simple it seems!)
• A ‘potter’s dream’ raffle (ticketed): with goodie bags of the value £150-£220 from our sponsors Potclays, Hartley&Noble, and Glost Glaze. You just need to try your luck!
• A communal pot: one single big community pot, to which any guest can contribute to with coils and decorations, helping us create a keepsake of the event, to be permanently displayed in the studio.
• Live music and drinks throughout the day, from bubbles to the craft beer of the local Neckstamper. Our neighbour Pavilion Bakery will also be open for some sweet or savoury treats.

The sculpting and Raku firing workshops are expected to fill quickly, so early booking is recommended. Tickets are available via this link: https://bookwhen.com/turningearthsummersolstice

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“Just as the solstice welcomes the light of summer, we’re inviting the community to have fun and connect with us” says Lewis, Operational Manager at Turning Earth. “We hope this event will become a new annual tradition — one where everyone feels welcome to connect through craft.”

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As winter draws on, we have been spending some time reflecting on the exciting times in the summer of 2024, when our team constructed a replica Roman-style kiln in the heart of Highgate Wood.

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With our partners at Friends of Highgate Roman Kiln (FoHRK) and Firing London's Imagination we built and fired this unique wood-fired kiln. In the run-up to the firing, we also put on a course for makers and people interested in local history that captured some of the essence of the history of craft in these magical woods.

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For those who don't know, nearly 2000 years ago, Highgate Wood was once home to a Roman Pottery manufacturing site, where dinnerware and storage vessels were made from local clay. During the event, we used the same clay as our ancient potter peers and had expert help to understand the archaeology of the site and what it told us about their practice. We were even entrusted to safeguard some 2000-year-old fragments of Roman pottery found in the woods so that we could learn from them. The forms of these pots and the way they were finished with specialty slips were quite beautiful and had things to teach us about the practical uses of our local materials.

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The construction and firing of the kiln was an exciting task in and of itself: we filled the kiln twice with around 300 Roman-style pots each time. We spent 12-13 hours firing the kiln to the maximum temperature, with wood sourced mainly from the woods, thanks to the fantastic grounds team in Highgate Woods. Our teachers took potters through processing the wild clay themselves, throwing historic shapes inspired by found relics and fragments, and taught them about the one-of-a-kind Roman kiln firing techniques. With expert guidance from Graham Taylor from Potted History, our team constructed the kiln in a historic fashion, from a mixture of earth and real Roman bricks. And we passed on this knowledge to those on our course during our “post-firing discussions” to fully immerse everyone involved in the exciting and challenging process of firing a Roman Kiln.

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It’s amazing how this style of firing can bring people together from so many different ceramic and historical backgrounds: from mudlarkers and geologists to historians and recreationists. Along with our friends at FoHRK, to whom none of this would have been possible without, we are excited to be running this course again in 2025, with more opportunities to get involved with the project and many more Roman pots to be made!

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It was a pleasure to speak with the BBC Radio 3 about the project, and we were delighted with their short documentary about it, “New Generation Thinkers: Clay and Collapse”. You can listen to it on the BBC website.

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Keep an eye on our socials for more news. There will be many opportunities to get involved with wild clay processing, historical pottery making, and Roman wood-firing at Turning Earth very soon.

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A new year, a new market! Turning Earth’s Ceramics Market is back at the Hoxton studio on the weekend of March 22nd and 23rd. With 80 talented makers (different each day) showcasing their handmade pottery, you’ll discover an array of beautifully crafted, one-of-a-kind pieces. With Mother’s Day just around the corner, it’s the ideal opportunity to pick up something truly special.

Throughout the weekend, you’ll be treated to live performances by Jimm, from the Jazz Cannibals, whose eclectic sound blends jazz, rap, trad, folk, reggae, sea shanty, punk, and funk—an unmissable soundtrack to your market experience.

Feeling peckish? Sourdough Daali, a micro-bakery and street food pop-up, will be serving up wood-fired sourdough pizzas alongside irresistible treats like cardamom banana bread and brown butter flapjacks. Meanwhile, Climpson & Sons will be on hand with expertly brewed barista coffee, soft drinks, and their signature Espresso Martini.

Sunday, March 23rd, brings an extra special guest—Victor Ng, a current participant on The Great Pottery Throw Down. He’ll be showcasing and selling his work, and if you’re lucky, he might share some behind-the-scenes stories from the show, including his proudest (and most disastrous) moments—like the time he built and decorated a boat… only for it to explode in the kiln! Originally from Canada, Victor discovered Turning Earth Hoxton after moving to London in 2021 and has been a dedicated maker ever since, with a passion for throwing delightfully wacky vases.

Also joining us on Sunday are makers from the East End Trades Guild, an alliance of 300 independent East London businesses and self-employed artisans. Their presence brings a diverse range of handmade goods beyond ceramics, all created with the same care and craftsmanship. The EETG works to protect and sustain local businesses, ensuring that London’s creative community continues to thrive.

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Join us for our upcoming Ceramics Markets: 4 days of handmade crafts, 200+ makers, live demos, festive food, music, and support for local artisans!

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More info

Heartbreak this month, we are losing a dear brother after 10 years of devoted service to the members and students of our Hoxton branch of Turning Earth. Giuseppe, all the way back in 2013, a wee stripling, straight out of University, was a founding team member and pioneer and has been with us from the day we fired our first kiln, until the last day of June this year. Now having matured into great sophistication and strength of character, an exemplary human, he has finally decided to embark on the next stage of his career. Dammit!

Giuseppe has been a workhorse in the studio and has championed its processes and smooth running from day one with a speedy, reliable zeal; He has a keen attention to detail, takes full personal responsibility for everything he touches, and has been a firm favourite among the Turning Earth members, with his wit and charm, and zero nonsense approach (they have even made him a blue plaque to commemorate his decade of ‘discipline and tough love’- which is now presiding on the wall of his old domain: the plaster area. On top of this, they whipped together a dazzlingly sizeable fund to support him through his transition stage).

He has helped spearhead the management of many of the Turning Earth sales and events and, not least, organise the mammoth move of the learning hub, from Cremer street to Laburnum street, a feat which in itself, was gargantuan, but given the circumstances that the whole organisation had been obliged to deal with, we wouldn't have been able to do it without him!

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In short, Giuseppe has embodied all of the values we strive for here at Turning Earth: Diligence, service, humour, excellence, care…; I could go on, and he has been a leader, a teacher and an inspiration for us all in this way. Indeed, these characteristics are a dream for anyone who has worked in, or had to hire a team, however, time is nigh, he says, to make it on his own, take the plunge, jump out of the familiar apron strings of the community that loves him- otherwise he’d be here for another 10 years, he says.. We wouldn’t complain about that!

Farewell then Giuseppe, we know that with such talents you will be a success in anything you choose to do; we don’t expect to be serving prized calves anytime soon. But these doors will always be open, should you need us.

You can see what this deserter is up to here: 

Instagram: giuseppeparrinelloceramics

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