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A luxury company which makes its fine bone china and jewellery at a factory in Stoke-on-Trent is one of the Royal family’s favourite businesses. Halcyon Days is one of only 14 firms in the world to hold all three Royal Warrants and is the only supplier of objets d’art to the royal household.
The Queen was set to visit the company’s Fenton-based factory in 2020 to mark its 70th anniversary, but plans had to be put on hold when the pandemic struck. But the monarch was recently able to take part in a ‘factory tour’ of her own in Windsor Castle when Halcyon Days, which also has an enamel factory in Wolverhampton, brought its products to her.
Among the items on display in the White Drawing Room were hand-decorated teapots, coffee cups and saucers all made in Stoke-on-Trent. The Queen also watched a demonstration of traditional enamelling and gilding by hand by highly skilled artists from the company’s factories.
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Master gilder Susan Jones who performed the demonstrations for the Queen with master enamelling artisan Susan Shakespeare, said: “The experience was truly, truly wonderful and one that not many have had and I’m still a bit in shock. We were so nervous, but Her Majesty’s nature made us feel so relaxed. It was absolutely amazing.”
Halcyon Days, which has its headquarters in Knightsbridge in London, is proud of its Stoke-on-Trent heritage and skilled workforce – and calls the city the ‘home of the English pottery industry’ on its website . Since 2015, the company also owns Fenton-based Caverswall China, which was founded in 1973 and received its own Royal Warrant as a fine bone china manufacturer in 2008.
(Image: Getty Images)
A page on the Halcyon Days website talks buyers through the process of making the high quality wares and states that the company’s ‘secret formula of fine bone china has one of the highest calcium percentages of any manufacturer’.
It says: “The first examples of fine bone china were created in London in 1748, but the first commercially successful bone china was crafted by potters in Stoke-on-Trent in the 1790s, the same town where Halcyon Days and its sister company, fellow Royal Warrant Holder, Caverswall China has its factory and manufacturing today. Because of this knowledge and heritage, English fine bone china remains the most sought after china in the world.
“Each piece of our English fine bone china has been crafted, from clay to finished product, by hand in our Stoke-on-Trent factory. A small team of master craftsmen, potters and artisans use skills passed down for generations to craft ranges of fine bone china dinnerware and teaware that are entirely handmade.
“From glazing the fine bone china teacups to gilding their matching saucers, each element is made with an attention to detail that no other fine bone china can boast. The level of skill and knowledge required to create the exquisite finished product is a wonder to see.”
(Image: Getty Images)
The Queen Mother was a fan of the firm’s creations, and first commissioned an enamel box in 1970 of her London home Clarence House. Other members of the Royal Family soon followed suit, and the Queen Mother went on to issue the company’s first Royal Warrant in 1972.
During the audience at Windsor, the Queen also saw Halcyon Days’ first ‘year box’ – from the Silver Jubilee of 1977 – and viewed new Platinum Jubilee pieces which are dark blue and painted with platinum flowers of the realm.
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