The team are pleasant, helpful, work well together. They have a great organised system that is efficient, reduces waste, and supportive of each other. Very clean toilet. Beautiful effort into Halloween decor as well. The class was educational and fun. Challenging and fulfilling. Went above my expectations and am very happy I took the risk and booked this workshop. Highly recommend.

Lovely class, great teacher, thorough and helpful method of teaching. Kit came with everything advertised and several days before the class.

Update (original review below):

Immediately after leaving the original review when leaving the class, the director Gabrielle contacted me mortified at my experience and offered a full refund AND a private makeup session. I was insanely pleased to see someone taking feedback and wanting to makeup for an unfortunate experience. Gabriella has 18 years pottery experience and you can see she’s very knowledgeable and cares about her business and people’s experience at her studios. Whilst the original teacher was lovely, it was confirmed that there were some differences that probably weren’t the best in her teaching methods and Gabrielle did reassure me that steps would be taken to train the previous teacher to a better standard so this can be avoided for others in the future. Cleaning up is not compulsory and should have been offered and made clear to students, doing some bits to help speed the process up is acceptable and entirely different to being made to stop 15 minutes early and assigned literal cleaning job roles. I am hoping it was just a one-off with the tutor being new and after experiencing Gabrielle’s response and teaching style I don’t think the initial teacher and session with her is a true reflection on the courses here and overall business. I am definitely now planning on returning and hopefully taking a 4 week class with Gabrielle herself. I did end up making 2 pieces that were offered to me to be fired and shipped free of charge though I did offer to pay since the class had already been offered to me as a free makeup and that was generous in itself but Gabrielle was very generous to not insist on this. Originally I said “unfortunately will not be booking here again to be talked at and then used as a maid”, however, now I am excited to go back and hopeful the initial mishaps won’t occur again for others and can say if you’re going to spend your money with any pottery business, I would recommend here as they truly care to teach you and allow you to leave feeling positive about the session.


Original review:

Teacher was lovely but the set-up of the class is insane. First 45 mins of 2 hour session was spent just talking and explaining instead of the better option of teaching and practicing each step as you go (which due to the seating arrangement I now know is a reason why they don’t teach like this). Due to the seating arrangement the teacher can’t really watch everyone as everyone is separated so the teacher has to go back and forth and misses where you’ve made mistakes and can’t really help you avoid it because they’re not there to see it. This also means the teacher is quick to correct the mistake because they can’t teach how to correct it/avoid it without seeing what’s been done/your hand placement, etc. Then you have to wait and do each step anyway with the rest of the class so if you do your bit first you’re left waiting and wasting more time. They also do smaller balls of clay than usual so whatever item you do manage to make is tiny. Then you’re expected to spend the last 15 minutes to clean up. Probably longer until you’re done cleaning, I left after helping for 10-15 minutes as the work just wasn’t ending. I’m also disabled and just cannot be standing that long doing work that isn’t mine to do. In the end you only actually get 1 hour on the wheel… £60 for 1 hour? Not the best. Left the session annoyed as hell. Felt it was a waste of time and money. To top it off, when I left the gates were closed and had to walk back (which again is extra strain on a disabled person) to find someone to let me out, this also meant I had to pay waiting fees for my cab since he had to wait till I could get someone to find the code and let me out. This was just the final small straw that broke my back that day. The code should be provided to everyone that’s attending to prevent this, or gate not closed. Price of the class needs to be severely reduced especially if we’re expected to clean up everything ourselves. The clay balls shouldn’t be so small, some may want small, some may want bigger. The beginning 45 minutes of talking also needs to be severely reduced to only the necessary information/technique.