If you’re in the mood for a weekend of pottering about…
…well, the Pottery Café was pretty much designed for that.
They’re a pair of ceramics painting cafés that have been going for over 25 years, combining the restful, meditative hobby of painting your own mugs, plates and teapots with copious amounts of tea and cake.
The original studio on Fulham Road was set up by the queen of printed pottery herself, Emma Bridgewater, and in 2011 a second one opened on Battersea’s Northcote Road.
Head inside and you’ll find bright, breezy spaces with plenty of tables (best booked in advance) and walls lined with dozens of blank ceramics, from modestly-sized coasters to garden gnomes and piggy banks. You’ll just need to pick up whatever fires up your creative engines, choose a couple of paint colours, then take a seat and prepare to create pure artistic alchemy – or something terrible that you can blame on your kids.
If you’re feeling intimidated, there are both highly knowledgeable staff circulating the room, who you can flag down for all kinds of tips and advice… and a bucket full of interestingly shaped sponges, which you can use to create professional-looking prints and patterns without having to wave a paintbrush around. And yes, babies’ hands and feet are also considered acceptable painting tools (assuming it’s your baby).
It’s a surprisingly engrossing activity, regardless of your artistic abilities, and if you come here with friends or your kids you can easily while away a few hours chatting and painting.
And if hunger strikes, Pottery Café makes good on the second part of its name by serving up an array of baked treats, snacks, teas and coffee (served on their own sponge-printed ceramics).
Altogether: a smashing day out.
NOTE: Pottery Café is open daily in Battersea and Fulham. You can find out more, and make a booking here.
Pottery Café | 735 Fulham Road, London SW6 5UL
And now… become an artistic genius with these creative workshops