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Our Story

Philippa trained at Cardiff College of Art as an illustrator and potter. This unusual mixture of disciplines led to an excitement with surface and texture and she soon began working in modelled and textured clay. Her first major commission was a painted tile mural in 1962 which then led to further commissions using ceramic and stone. In 1967 she left London to marry Kennedy, a Cambridge historian who, whilst working in industry, had developed an interest in reproducing limited editions of sculpture. Philippa and Kennedy went into partnership in 1968, designing and making over 100 ceramic murals, mostly for public situations. Many of these can still be seen today.

Visit Philippa's website www.philippathrelfall.com to see an archive of her work.

Evolution of Life in the Sea

Shown here is 'Evolution of Life in the Sea' completed in 1963. It was a stone and ceramic mural sited at a newly built school in Loftus (later named Rosecroft School). It closed in 2001 but during 2009 the mural was relocated to Doorstep Green Park in Skinningrove.

Philippa is looking rather self-conscious in the fashion of the day!

The early methods of reproducing some mural details were evolving from flexible moulds to hard moulds and this gave rise to much sharper definition. Using these new moulding techniques, Philippa and Kennedy's annual Christmas cards from 1969 were small detailed tiles.
Some examples of these Christmas card tiles are shown here.

Tile Christmas Cards
Froomsgate Map

These new hard moulds came in very handy for some murals which required many repeat pieces such as architectural details, houses and trees.

The houses and trees shown in this photo are from the 1971 mural known as the Froomsgate Map, which was located in Bristol until it was rescued in 2014. Now on display at the Black Dog workshop in Bath.

The manager of Wells Cathedral shop, being one of the recipients of these Christmas cards, thought they might sell well to tourists. A small range of tiles was designed and made, inspired by the abundance of stone carvings found in the Cathedral. The first tiles appeared in the cathedral shop in 1976. By the early eighties the business was branded 'Black Dog of Wells', the name 'Black Dog' coming from the title of Philippa and Kennedy's original property in Tor Street in Wells. Records for the house went back to 1562. In 1636 it was a cider house known as 'Ye Blacke Dogge'.

By the mid 1980's, the range was evolving with references from other churches and cathedrals including Bath Abbey, St. Albans Cathedral and Rochester Cathedral. Some designs started to incorporate quotes or blessings to add significance. Since 1976 we think there may be over 200 designs and we are creating new ones each year. The tiles have sold in many thousands, and we know they are collected by people all over the world.

Shown here is 'Plenty & Grace'. This is one of our most popular and longest running of our designs.

Plenty and Grace terracotta tile

Daniel who had been working in the cartographic industry for eight years joined Black Dog in 2002, the same year that Kennedy died. When Daniel was growing up he had little interest in clay but his thoughts changed a couple of years before joining Philippa and going into partnership. In 2016 Philippa retired from the business and it moved to Bath the same year - rebranded as 'Black Dog'.

Happy Hen

A short time lapse film to show the evolution of the Happy Hen design. We selected a few images of Staffordshire hens sitting on baskets and created a hybrid of these images for a version that would work well as a tile. You may notice that there are several attempts to get the patterning on the wings to work.

Good Food

The corn sheaf tile is based on a Victorian brass doorstop. The text 'For good food and good friends Praise be' was first heard as a grace said before a meal and we incorporated this into the design.

The tile is shown here being used as a breadwarmer. When heated in the oven the pottery, retains its heat and keeps the bread warm for longer.

Good Food terracotta tile

Chinese Garden

'He who plants a Garden plants Happiness' is translated from a Chinese proverb.

We wanted to incorporate this saying into a design with a Chinese flavour, and so used a 19th century 'willow pattern' serving dish as the source of the image.

Translated into modelled clay, the original painted image takes on something of the quality of a piece of carved ivory.

Chinese Garden terracotta tile

Contact Us

Black Dog
Unit 4, Meadows Lane
Bath, Somerset
BA1 6FB

01225 445086

info@blackdogtiles.com