Highland Stoneware

Highland Stoneware has been making hand-painted stoneware pottery at Baddidarroch on the north side of Lochinver Bay since the early 1970s. The studio is a short walk along the loch from the village centre, in the cluster of buildings around the old fish-curing yard. Inside, the working pottery and the retail shop share the same floor, and visitors can walk the public part of the studio during opening hours, the throwing wheels, the painting benches, the kilns and the maturing racks all in view.

The output is recognisable in the Scottish craft-shop ecosystem: thrown stoneware blanks decorated freehand with paintings of local landscape, flowers, animals and birds, Suilven and Stac Pollaidh recur, alongside puffins, hares, foxgloves and the general visual stock of north-west Highland wildlife. Each piece is one-off, signed by the painter on the base. The full retail range, mugs, plates, bowls, jars, lamp-bases, larger commissioned pieces, is sold from the on-site shop, with a working seconds table at reduced prices.

The pottery is one of two production sites; the smaller second studio is at Ullapool, off the harbour road. The Lochinver works is the original, the larger of the two, and the more straightforwardly visitor-facing, with the studio walk-through, the seconds table and the larger commission display all in one building.

Open through the season; reduced hours in winter. Current opening at the Highland Stoneware website.