Crown Lynn in our Kitchens

Crown Lynn pottery has been part of New Zealand kitchens for years.  This home grown, sturdy and reliable pottery has long been part of our lives.    Reasonably cheap, and easily replaceable, a Crown Lynn dinner set was often a wedding present to young married couples of our vintage.  Or maybe they got one of those white Crown Lynn swans instead, (I never fancied those swans at all).  After the boom times of the 50s and 60s, the factory closed in 1989.  We visited the City Gallery in Wellington to see the “Crown Lynn, Crockery of Distinction” exhibition.

There was a very interesting film running (without sound) from Archives New Zealand, titled “From Potters Wheel to Mass Production”.  We watched as hand thrown pots were made with ease, but it would have taken much practise, I imagine.  We saw blobs of clay placed on wheels, then automatically flattened and stamped out into plates.  It was real mass production as ladies attached one cup handle after another to the cup bodies.  Sadly it was not permitted to take photos inside the exhibition, and the security staff who were watching everyone closely made doubly sure that nobody touched anything, or snapped a few sneaky photos.  The items on display came from private collections, and although we were most familiar with the utilitarian table ware, we were surprised at the variety of other items produced.  In the mid 70s Members of Parliament were eating off Crown Lynn crockery featuring a stylised Maori motif at Bellamys, the Parliamentary restaurant at the Beehive.   The Crown Lynn factory had a military connection too, producing crockery for the Army, the Airforce, and the Navy.  And how many of us remember drinking cups of tea out of the sturdy crockery made especially for New Zealand Railways?  Hefty New Zealand Railways cups are now collectors’ items but were once tossed from the train windows, so the story goes. According to an old joke, only three things would survive a nuclear holocaust: ants, cockroaches and New Zealand Railways cups. And the first two would make it only if they were under the third.

New Zealand Rail cup and saucer

The factory also produced a line of animal figurines (we did not know that), and I spent some time looking at the tiny birds, animals, and various eggcups.  These were from the collection of Helen Slater.

Postcard of animal figurines

Robin remembered owning an “Autumn Splendour” dinner-set in a previous life, and the remains of this was sold some years ago for a pittance on Trade Me.  Wish we had known that,  it could well be collectable by now.  A look through the kitchen cupboards brought up only two Crown Lynn items.  My white  Beehive mixing bowl was given to me by my sister Kathleen way back in the mid 1960s as I first entered matrimony.  It is quite large and extremely heavy and still has plenty of life in it, although I do tend to use a lighter stainless steel mixing bowl these days.

My first mixing bowl

Then I found a fluted edge quiche (flan) dish which I use from time to time, complete with the Crown Lynn logo underneath.

My flan dish

The exhibition was very interesting, and had a lot of items that we had never seen before.  Well worth a visit for a trip down memory lane.  There is an admission charge, but if you  plan your visit  for a Wednesday, admission is free on this day.