Pottery - South Heigton

My neighbour has a Chris Lewis pot, and she was telling me how it was something she ‘just longed to touch’ when she saw it. When I meet Chris Lewis and Ursula Mommens to discuss their up-coming open weekend at South Heighton Pottery, Chris tells me a lot of people say that about his work. Scoffing cake from one of his plates, I know exactly what they mean.

Mommens is a charming and remarkable woman, still potting and exhibiting, and not looking her ninety-eight years at all. She tells me she is fed up that the DVLA refused to renew her driving license three years ago and that she can no longer come and visit her Lewes friends. Her living-room is filled with an extraordinary collection of pots and paintings, some by her first husband Julian Trevelyan. It feels like visiting a Charleston that is still inhabited. Mommens is the great-granddaughter of Charles Darwin, and great-great-granddaughter of Josiah Wedgwood, and she tells me the huge Welsh dresser I am looking at was picked up in North Wales by her grandfather, Darwin’s first son. Her father, sports journalist Bernard Darwin, was born in Charles Darwin’s house in Down, Kent. Mommens got into potting after a Wedgwood family member invited her to the Wedgwood pottery. She was mesmerised by watching clay being thrown, and remembers liking the feel of clay in her hands.