Tea Cup Tuesday-Tea Rooms

Hello All and welcome to Tea Cup Tuesday once again!
Today I am sharing with you some images of Tea rooms I saw while in England.
The first photo above is in Romsey, King John's House. This dwelling is about 800 years old. There are beautiful walled gardens surrounding it, with gorgeous flowers, and fruit growing on the walls. Inside the house is a lovely tea room. A total delight to visit.

Here I am in Lyndhurst at another tea room that I think some of you might love. I did not get a chance to go inside, but it looked really fanciful on the outside.

The photo above is the sign handing above the next tea room, in Honiton. You have to walk down a narrow passage to reach it, on one side the passage opens onto a tea garden. The walk is full of flowers in planters as well.

It is very charming inside. The tables were all set with tea cups and plates just waiting for hungry and thirsty customer. And this place has gluten free options as well.

This is one of the sweetest little tea room, down a very tiny lane in Port Isaac.

And this tea room (which I forgot to take a photo of the exterior of the building) is in Tintagel. The inside is very traditional yet cozy. I have the absolute worst leek and potato soup there! See my dear hubby at our table?

These are their scones. They were not gluten free so I did not get to have any, but they were heavenly to look at!

I also wanted to share with you this beautiful tea pot I saw at an antique shop in Honiton. It is quite large, maybe holding 12 cups. The price, if I remember correctly, was about $32 USD. If I could have brought it home safely, I would have bought it!

Thank you so much for stopping by to visit. I think I have caught up with every one from the last two T.T. I really enjoyed seeing all your posts (and being able to comment again! Yay!).
Next week I will be sharing a tea cup trio, and a lovely little limoges tea pot I did get to bring home from our trip.

And believe it or not, I am on another trip! I will be home again in a few days.
Hugs to you All,
Terri

Back Home Again

Hello All!
I was away for most of July in England. It was a truly enjoyable trip. We had the happy opportunity to visit with our dear friends and also see more of this wonderful country. I thought I might put together a post with some photos to give you an idea of what I did while there.

I also want to thank every one of you for stopping by to visit and leaving such kind comments. Thank you also to the new followers. I appreciate the time you take to drop by and value your words. I am catching up on as many of your blogs as possible, and working on new art pieces and hopefully a new video or two in August. Yay!

These pictures are not in order, I thought I might just give you an idea of what I did and saw while in the UK. This gorgeous place is Post Issac.

Tintagel is nine miles north of Port Isaac and just as gorgeous.
It is worth going to England just to see this view!

Remains of a castle from the 13th century. Richard, Earl of Cornwall, built it in 1233. There is a long history of Arthurian legend associated with this place. And Richard may have built there because of it.

My friend and I visiting Highclear castle, where one of my favorite programs is shot, Downton Abbey. It was build in 1679 by the Carnarvon family, and it is still their home today.

Karl and I were blessed to visit Brighton on a gorgeous day with delightful friends.

My friend and I oooohing and ahhhing over desserts in a Parisian shop window in Oxford.

Port Isaac again, one of the most peaceful spots I have ever been in....no sounds except the ocean and the birds.....aaaaaahhhhh.......

The Swan Inn in Morten In Marsh. We had a gorgeous room here.

Spotted these fab shoes in a shop window in Glastonbury.

And of course there were beautiful gardens everywhere!

Gorgeous flowers....

Beautiful....

Stunning....

Sheep.....and more sheep!

and more gorgeous flowers....

The first thing I did do after arriving was to visit this quilt show in the 12th century Norman church Romsey Abbey. There were some amazing quilts and it was quite the treat to see them in such a glorious place (there was a small choir practicing and their voices and music were absolutely incredible!).

Holly hocks, in bright fuchsia....delightful!

So beautiful to see in a garden.

Romesy.

Door.

Mmmmmm.....sweet peas! I miss growing these here.

I found some vintage treasures here and there and two tea cup trios. I had an chance to taste clotted cream ice cream! I even had clotted cream fudge, which is heavenly.
I hope you are all having a creative and joyful summer.
Hugs,
Terri

Tea Cup Tuesday-New Cup!

Hello All!
Welcome to Tea Cup Tuesday once again!
I have been away in England this month and soon to be home. My hubby and I have been truly enjoying our time here. England has so many lovely spots to visit. Winchester is a one of them. I picked up this tea cup trio at a open air market there yesterday.

I was drawn to the gorgeous green design and the lovely bouquets. I picked it up hoping that it was in good shape and was delighted to find it blemish and crack free.
It has a sweet angular-ish loop handle with a spur.
The plates have a pretty slightly scalloped edge.

This sweet trio was created by Royal Crown Derby. I have never owned any RCD china before. I have seen it in shops and drooled over it, and now I am thrilled to bring this set home.

Royal Crown Derby manufactures fine quality Bone China in Derby, England. They can trace the beginnings of their company to 1750. Queen Victoria gave them the honor of using the word "Royal" in their name in 1890.

I have been lucky to enjoy a cream tea on this trip. Don't these scones looks delicious? They are gluten free, and yes, they were delicious! It was a real treat!

I have continued to be unable to post on most of your blogs. I have seen many of your tea cups over the past two weeks, but I have only been able to comment on a few. Blogger keeps asking me to log in, but it doesn't accept it. I remember hearing some of you mention this difficulty before, and I am hoping that it is repaired soon. Oh, and I am also having some strange spacing problems, as you can see by this post.

If you would like to join in on Tea Cup Tuesday just go and create a post with your tea cup in it and then come back here and join in your post with the link system below. Martha and I are always trilled to see what you are sharing with us all.

Thank you so much for coming by to visit today.

Hugs

Terri

Tea Cup Tuesday-English Pottery

(Green ground laid color with guilding on this beautiful 1840's cup)

Hello All, and welcome to Tea Cup Tuesday!

Today I will be sharing about my visit to the Gladstone Pottery Museum in Stoke-On-Trent, England. This museum is the only complete Victorian pottery factory, keeping safe the history of pottery in North Staffordshire, England. I was quite fascinated to see this preserved factory that began in 1787 and closed it's door's in 1974, after being saved from demolition when it was realized that if it was removed, there would be no more coal fueled bottle kilns left that represent the history of fine china production.

This is the inner courtyard, the bricks having been worn smooth with thousands of workers footsteps.

This is called a saggar they were created specially at the factory from local clay to stack the china in to go in to the kiln. There was an art to creating them properly.

The three ingredients that make porcelain china.

Moulds that were used to form tea cups.

Here is a pictures of a saggar that was stacked for the kiln.

Here are two of the bottle kilns. There is the bottle shaped exterior and the coal burning kiln sits inside this bottle.

Peering into the narrow doorway showing a fully stacked kiln.

One of the coal burning furnaces that ring the kiln.

A group of pottery workers.

Another group of workers...they don't seem too unhappy. Yet when you read the details of their working conditions you see how difficult it really was. Most workers were paid by the piece, and if it was fine going into the kiln, but somehow the firing failed and all the pieces of china were ruined, they would not get paid at all. They were only paid for pieces that came out of the kiln in saleable condition. Eventually there was a law passed that changed this, and they were paid for pieces that were good quality when they went into the kiln. And that is only one of the difficulties. Many of the jobs included serious health risks, as well as the fact that a child as young as 5 could be working there all day too. It wasn't until about the 1900's that children were not permitted to work at the factory.

Hundreds of moulds left sitting on the shelves.

We toured many areas of the factory, the clay room, the slip room, the plate making area... and in one room was a man doing fine painting. He was very interesting to speak to. This tiny tea set he made for his wife. He said the dots were much harder to paint than the actual scene. This set is in 1:12th scale.

This photo is taken through the glass into the chemist's office, where he measured out the powders for paints.

Paints stored in jars.

I felt very lucky to get a glimpse of this book through the post office window. It is a very old pattern book. The artists would paint in and number the pattern in the book.

This museum is such a learning experience. I now have a much better idea of how some of my tea cups were made. I also have more appreciation for the people who created them.

I want to thank each of you who joined in T.T. last week. I am sorry to say that I have not visited any of you yet! We have had very spotty Internet. I am very lucky tonight that I have had the chance to create this post. I will catch up with all of you when I return home.

If you would like to join in this week. Just go and create a post with your tea cup in it and then come back here and link below with the actually post you are linking up. Martha and I look forward to seeing your gorgeous china!

Hugs to you all.

Terri