Les Blakebrough and Mondrook Pottery

[Wyvern]

Hi

I found this mug at the markets on Sunday, and picked it up just because I liked the design. It's marked "Mondrook Pottery":



Then while browsing eBay yesterday, I came across this listing for a pair of Les Blakebrough mugs:



Was there a connection between Les Blakebrough and Mondrook? I've been unable to find anything online.

Thanks
Wyvern

[Judith]

This is very interesting. It looks like the Mondrook Pottery is still active from directory listings. I wonder whether they would know?

[Ian N. Brookes]

Why not just as Les Blakebrough himself? [e-mail] If anyone should know then it will be Les.
Cheers and best regards. Ian

[Wyvern]

Thanks Ian. I was a bit reticent to bother Mr Blakebrough, but I've bitten the bullet and emailed him :)

Wyvern

[Savvy Dubsek]

There is no connection ,nothing to connect really.It's Len Bell,potter from Mondrook,he's not pottering anymore,retired. Blakebrough never used slopy giant LBs
Sav.

[Judith]

Hi Sav, welcome to the forum!

This is pretty important information, as the black orchard pieces with the LB mark are being sold as Blakebrough's. (We had all grown confident that we could tell his LBs from other ones by the high L.)

I have a small bowl with the slopy giant LB and a serving dish in the same design with a smaller LB (see picture). Are these both by Les Bell?

[Judith]

Yep, there's an entry for Leonard Bell in the 1981 Potter's Directory and it has a picture of his LB mark. In 1981 he was working at Woodstock Pottery, Woodstock-On-Loddon (near Bendigo), which he had established in 1976. (It also has its own WP mark.) He trained at Bendigo College of Advanced Education, 1961-4 and Technical Teachers College, Toorak, 1967, and worked for John Davidson at his New Mills Pottery in Cornwall from 1974-5.

Brett Robertson, reviewing an exhibition held at the Bendigo CAE in 1987, talks about "Len Bell's technically flawless lidded jar" (Pottery in Australia, 27/3:70). So possibly he didn't move to Mondrook until after 1987?