Torquay pottery is the collective name for the earthenware made by a group of potteries in and around Torquay in south Devon from the later nineteenth century until the mid-twentieth century. The industry grew up after the discovery of fine local red clay, and its leading names include the Watcombe Pottery, the Torquay Terra-Cotta Company, Aller Vale and Longpark.
The earliest Torquay wares were refined terracotta busts, figures and classical vases, admired for their fine red body and often painted or left plain. In the later Victorian period the potteries turned increasingly to art pottery and then to the cheerful motto ware for which Torquay is best known. Motto ware is decorated with scratched sgraffito lettering through a cream slip, carrying proverbs, homely sayings and dialect phrases, often alongside cottages, cockerels, ships or flowers. These pieces were sold widely to holidaymakers as souvenirs of the West Country. Collectors look for unusual mottoes, scarce shapes, good clear decoration and impressed factory marks, while chips and glaze crazing are common faults. The early terracotta and art pottery pieces are the scarcest and most highly regarded Torquay wares.
