Mary Chappelhow, who juggles running her pottery business at Brougham Hall and co-running the hall, talks about the joys and challenges of safeguarding the historic venue as a base for the community, as well as her lifelong passion for pottery.
Potter Mary Chappelhow, who runs Interlude Ceramics, took co-ownership of Brougham Hall in December as part of a consortium of creatives based at the venue.
The new owners quickly launched a fundraising drive to help keep the hall afloat, and have already raised 10% of their immediate target.
“We want to raise £80,000 to do the immediate repairs, and we are up to £8,000 now in donations,” said Mary. “It is a good start. There are lots of other avenues to go down, as well but it is a good start.
“There are six of us that make up the Community Interest Company. We are doing all the work ourselves and sharing it out between us. We just have to keep that momentum rolling.”
Mary says that, as a priority, the new owners are also working on a social media campaign focusing on the history of Brougham Hall, what essential repairs need doing, and also highlighting “the community aspects of why keeping it in the public domain is important”.
Going forward, a big priority for the new owners is to increase the opportunities to support new and growing creative businesses.
“Presently, I think we have five units that are not occupied,” said Mary. “Our first job is to make sure they are up to the legal standard for electrical safety and the roofs don’t leak and the wood burners are all OK, that kind of thing. Once that is done we can rent them out and then the rental income will help support the whole project.”
The new units when ready will be rented at “very reasonable” rates to help support local businesses, including start-ups, said Mary.
“For a start-up business, it is a great opportunity to be surrounded by lots of other artists, who have been in that same position in the past,” she says, referring to the supportive community she has benefited from over the years at Brougham Hall.
Mary, aged 55, has been working full-time for 30 years, making a living from her pottery, which is inspired by her love of Cumbria.
“My designs are all inspired by the Lake District landscape, scenery, the different seasons — all the colours for my work are based on those.
“The lines I create come from the stone walls, and the rivers running through the landscape and it is all inspired by the area. It is an ongoing sort of process, you never get to the end of it. Every year you just refine it that little bit more and you change things, and it evolves organically over time.
“I will never know everything about pottery, you are learning all the time.”
From her fourth floor flat in Keswick, Mary watches the changing seasons and gains ideas for her work. “Because I live up on the fourth floor and I look out at Catbells, I see a lot of the seasons changing, and the landscape and the colours changing, so that is reflected in my work.
“I have a winter white, which is like snow on the tops of the fells, and then I have an autumn colour which is all the bracken and the heather changing colours on Skiddaw which I can see from my bedroom window. It reaffirms my colour choices and the way I design my pots.”
Mary, who has lived in Keswick for the last five years, and 13 years before that in Penrith, is originally from Newbiggin-on-Lune, where she grew up on her family farm.
After attending Ravenstonedale Primary School, she went to Kirkby Stephen Grammar School, where she had her first forays into pottery, courtesy of the arts department there.
“I fell in love with it and had a really inspirational teacher, who would let us go in at break times and lunchtimes,” she said. “I worked really hard and did it all the way up to A-level.”
In 1995 she set up her own business as well as working at Wetheriggs Pottery, near Penrith.
Two years later she began a degree course at Cumbria College of Art & Design (now the University of Cumbria) and gained a first class honours degree in 2000. She then set up Interlude Ceramics.
Mary’s specially designed creations supply a number of shops and businesses in Keswick, including Keswick Cheese Deli, Sanook gift shop and the Fellpack restaurant, as well as several in the Eden area, such as the Dog and Gun in Skelton. Her pots also feature in the recent cookbook by Dog and Gun owner/chef Ben Queen-Fryer.
Other local clients include Penrith Golf Club, for whom she makes trophies.
