The Secret Plant, the Victorian Shard, and the Potter Who Never Stopped Experimenting

Roger Irving Little | Boscastle Pottery, Cornwall

Roger Irving Little’s pottery studio and shop is located in Boscastle, a small coastal village in Cornwall, UK. Customers can watch the family working in the studio as they browse through the unique designs in the shop. Every piece is completely hand-made.

Boscastle Pottery is known for reviving an old Mochaware technique which causes a tree-like effect to form on the clay. Little first encountered this intricate detail as an apprentice after discovering a shard of pottery from Victorian times at an archaeological site in 1956.

“I took the piece to my then boss and asked him how it was done. He didn’t know. So, I set out to find it.”

What followed was four years of experimentation with plants, minerals, and dyes in an attempt to reproduce the shape he had seen.

I knew it was a plant, but I didn’t know what plant it was. I boiled dozens of them. Nearly got arrested twice.

Eventually he found the plant and was able to reconstruct the design that had caught his attention. He has never revealed the name of the plant. «This is a family secret.»

Other people have tried to reconstruct the technique, but according to Little, so far, no one has succeeded.

There might be another plant that gives a similar result, but the exact result can only be reconstructed by this one plant, in the entire world.

What is so fascinating about Roger Irving Little is his devotion to this technique and his love for the craft of pottery. He still works every day. He still experiments constantly.

I’ve been doing this for 70 years. I always say, it beats working for a living. I am 87 now but I still enjoy doing it. If I retire, what would I do? My son does it when I go away. I go away quite a lot.

His ideas come to him through the clay, he says. He likes to experiment.

Clay is still teaching me new things every day and inspiring me. I drive my wife wild because every week, I try something different, do little experiments. Some of them work, others don’t. It has made me very happy.