• Contact us
  • About us
  • Digital edition
  • Online archive
Saturday, July 26, 2025
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald
  • News
    Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge

    Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge

    Work starts on multi-use games area in Penrith

    Work starts on multi-use games area in Penrith

    Penrith businessman bitten by dog

    Penrith businessman bitten by dog

    End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years

    End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years

    Farm diversification project set to blossom

    Farm diversification project set to blossom

    71-year-old cyclist gets on his bike to Rome

    71-year-old cyclist gets on his bike to Rome

    Appleby car park and road to close for flood work

    Appleby car park and road to close for flood work

    Road closure plans for essential bridge repairs

    Road closure plans for essential bridge repairs

    Penrith drug dealer jailed

    Penrith drug dealer jailed

  • Sport
    Teen golfer George Curry lines up with world’s best players

    Teen golfer George Curry lines up with world’s best players

    Ullswater Community College footballers make history

    Ullswater Community College footballers make history

    New management set to lead Appleby Football Club

    New management set to lead Appleby Football Club

    Success for fighting squad

    Success for fighting squad

    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Online archive
  • Buy Photos
  • Buy your paper
  • North Lakes Living
No Result
View All Result
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald
  • News
    Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge

    Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge

    Work starts on multi-use games area in Penrith

    Work starts on multi-use games area in Penrith

    Penrith businessman bitten by dog

    Penrith businessman bitten by dog

    End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years

    End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years

    Farm diversification project set to blossom

    Farm diversification project set to blossom

    71-year-old cyclist gets on his bike to Rome

    71-year-old cyclist gets on his bike to Rome

    Appleby car park and road to close for flood work

    Appleby car park and road to close for flood work

    Road closure plans for essential bridge repairs

    Road closure plans for essential bridge repairs

    Penrith drug dealer jailed

    Penrith drug dealer jailed

  • Sport
    Teen golfer George Curry lines up with world’s best players

    Teen golfer George Curry lines up with world’s best players

    Ullswater Community College footballers make history

    Ullswater Community College footballers make history

    New management set to lead Appleby Football Club

    New management set to lead Appleby Football Club

    Success for fighting squad

    Success for fighting squad

    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    Penrith skipper Nicky Burns calls on team to keep winning

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    £100,000 target for new changing rooms extension

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Medal success for Upper Eden tug-of-war team

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Eden man competes in Hyrox World Games

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

    Double national triumph for Stuart Robinson

  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Online archive
  • Buy Photos
  • Buy your paper
  • North Lakes Living
No Result
View All Result
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald
No Result
View All Result
Home News

Potter helping to steer Brougham Hall to a brighter future

by CWH
14 February 2025
in News
A A
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Mary Chappelhow runs Interlude Ceramics, and is a co-owner of Brougham Hall.

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.

Tags: premium

Related Posts

Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge
Latest

Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge

26 July 2025
Work starts on multi-use games area in Penrith
Latest

Work starts on multi-use games area in Penrith

26 July 2025
Penrith businessman bitten by dog
News

Penrith businessman bitten by dog

25 July 2025
End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years
Latest

End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years

25 July 2025
Farm diversification project set to blossom
Farm and Countryside

Farm diversification project set to blossom

25 July 2025
71-year-old cyclist gets on his bike to Rome
News

71-year-old cyclist gets on his bike to Rome

25 July 2025
No Result
View All Result

Stay connected

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Most popular

Penrith businessman bitten by dog

Penrith businessman bitten by dog

25 July 2025
End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years

End of road for Cumbria Classic Coaches after 28 years

25 July 2025
Man who damaged Penrith’s Paddington Bear appears in court

Man who damaged Penrith’s Paddington Bear appears in court

22 July 2025
Ullswater Community College footballers make history

Ullswater Community College footballers make history

25 July 2025
Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge

Arrest following violent disorder in Pooley Bridge

26 July 2025
Appleby car park and road to close for flood work

Appleby car park and road to close for flood work

23 July 2025
Cumberland and Westmorland Herald Logo

33 Middlegate
Penrith
Cumbria
CA11 7SY

Phone: 01768 862313
Email: news@cwherald.com

Registered in England as Barrnon Media Limited. No: 12475190
VAT registration number: 343486488

Explore

  • News
  • Sport
  • Farming
  • Property
  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Your view

Useful links

  • Contact us
  • Photosales
  • Online archive
  • Buy your paper
  • Digital edition
  • North Lakes Living
  • Advertise
  • About us

Follow us on

© Barrnon Media Limited 2025

Terms & Conditions / Privacy Policy / Cookie Policy

This website and its associated newspaper are members of the Independent Press Standards Organisation
Review Your Cart
0
Discount
Add Coupon Code
Subtotal
Total Installment Payments
Bundle Discount
Checkout

 
0
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Sport
  • Obituaries
  • Nostalgia
  • Online archive
  • more
    • North Lakes Living
    • Buy Photos
    • Buy your paper
    • About us
    • Contact us

© 2020 Cumberland & Westmorland Herald