Jo Amey first encountered the archive material of Carter and Co of Poole over 40 years ago in their tile factory in Hamworthy. As a final year ceramics student she was researching the history of tiled buildings in the local area for her thesis. She can still recall carefully copying the tile designs from the factory pattern books in the atmospheric setting overlooking the harbour.
Many years later, her interest in tiled heritage revived and she built on her original research by recording tiles in situ and giving illustrated talks to groups. The Carter and Co Archives at the Dorset History Centre proved to be an invaluable resource and she was delighted to be able to study the tile factory pattern books again, which found a safe home there after the break up of Poole Pottery.
Last year she used the archive material when preparing a talk for the Twentieth Century Society, which focused on the company’s work with architects from 1920 to 1970. One of the many fascinating finds in the album D-PPY/A/6/10/13 was a photo of a slip-outline tiled mural on the Parvalux Factory in Wallisdown Road, Bournemouth. The mural had been installed in 1961 and showed a blue-print of a motor. The tiles can no longer be seen and the area shown in the photo on the right of the building has been altered since the 1960s.
Unfortunately, the designer is not recorded but there is a brochure, also in this album, from the Carter Group stand at the Olympia Building Exhibition of 1961. This shows an illustration of a mural showing machinery in a very similar style designed by Kenneth Bawden.
Some comments on a social media page suggested that the tiles had been relocated to the other side of the building and later covered with a dark render.
Planning permission is being sought for this site so it can be redeveloped for a supermarket which will involve the demolition of the factory building. Jo’s hope is that this will provide an opportunity to have the façade investigated and the tiles, if still extant, removed and re-sited on the new building. This would restore a remarkable example of a mid-century tile design that is site-specific and reflects two significant aspects of local industrial history.
Jo can be contacted at jo@tilelady.co.uk