The Wrens, Potterscroft and the Oxshott Pottery: shifting the story of studio ceramics from pot to process, ca. 1920-1970

Denise Wren (1891-1979) was among the first female studio potters in Britain and had a long and varied career employing experimental methods of making, teaching and writing about ceramics and craft more broadly. Wren pioneered handbuilding techniques thirty years before they were widely adopted, and together with her husband Henry Wren (1884-1947), and later her daughter Rosemary Wren (19222013), taught pottery classes, gave demonstrations and published practical books on pottery, articles on craft and sold plans to build kilns and kickwheels. The Wrens built their own home, Potterscroft, in Oxshott, Surrey, where they founded the Oxshott Pottery in 1920. This research resources are archive and collection based, including the extensive but little researched collection of Wren material held by Kingston Heritage Service. Through an in-depth study of material held in public and private collections and Wren's publications, I examine how the Wrens and the Oxshott Pottery can be situated with reference to other craft collectives at St. Ives and Ditchling in the interwar period and analyse their affiliation to other groups, such as the Knox Guild 6 and the Crafts Potters' Association (CPA) into the postwar period, and what effect this had on their overall ideas and approach.