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Milborne Port, Dorset 2010 – 2013

There was only a small run of production between 2011-2013 at the property in the small village of Milborne Port. Alan put up a shed which filled up with shelves of pots, and there was a small greenhouse where he housed a potter’s wheel. This literally was a cottage industry, the pots and work spilled over into the house and garden. Now Alan had to drive his work the 30 miles to Lyme Regis for firing by his old friend Berey Pealing. Berey had a pottery with a shop there, and had sold some of Alan’s work from Abbottsford and Whitty Down Farm years before. Unfortunately, Alan was not overjoyed with the results, the kiln could not reach the high temperatures required to achieve the desired effects. In particular, some glaze was too high gloss, and anticipated greens came out purple. Some of these pots were sold from the Devon Guild Shop.

Production at Milborne Port was made in small batches. Seedcases, spiral navel ovals, aureole forms (inverted and swollen), cleft spheres, pierced spheres, pierced crescents, split ovals, grooved and pierced wedges, split forms and small cleft spheres in porcelain.

In September 2012 Oxford Ceramics hosted a major retrospective exhibition of Alan’s work.

Cyril Wood Court, Bere Regis, Dorset 2014 – 2019

In 2014 Alan was offered a small flat at Cyril Wood Court which he often referred to as his hutch. Cyril Wood Court was a sheltered housing project for retired artists, writers, musicians and craftspeople who had fallen on hard times. There were art studios and facilities, even a kiln, but Alan found that there was already a hierarchy in place, which he felt he could not easily penetrate, so Wallwork began potting in his flat, he purchased a small second-hand electric kiln and converted it to run on gas. With a disregard for the rules and regulations, Alan built the kiln in the car park outside of his hutch, and limited production resumed once again, but only briefly.

In March 2015 Alan staged his last exhibition with his daughter Amanda. ‘The Wallwork and Wallwork Exhibition – Earth and Stone’ this was held at The Belgrave Gallery, St Ives, Cornwall.

In August 2015 Wallwork fired his final batch of pots, he had been finding the work ever more difficult, and issues had arisen over the siting of the kiln. These pots went to the Belgrave Gallery.

In 2016 Alan became very unwell, and in 2018 suffered a devastating stroke. He died in Dorchester Hospital on the 2nd of November 2019.

Alan had a fine send off, a ground burial at High Meadow in Dorset, and an obituary in The Guardian newspaper. Earlier that year the website 20th Century Forum’s public vote, had elected Alan Wallwork as ‘Britain’s Favourite Potter’.

In 2020-21, Alan had a “Jar” circa 1969 included in the prestigious 1st Collection Gallery Exhibition at The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Japan.

In 2023, Amanda Wallwork held the ‘Archive Exhibition’ at Bridport Arts Centre, once again showcasing her father’s work alongside her own.

Here follows a selection of work produced at the Milborne Port and Bere Regis Studios