Australia's oldest-working pottery is fired for new success, reports SARAH HUDSON
In its earliest days, Bendigo was just a crisscross of dusty tracks lined with the tents of gold-mining hopefuls en-route to the nearby goldfields.
It was on one of those tracks Scotsman George Duncan Guthrie, jaded after failing to strike it rich, established what is now known as Bendigo Pottery in 1858, now Australia's oldest working pottery.
"Instead of finding gold, he found high-quality clay and as he was a potter back in Scotland he started making utilitarian products," says Rod Thomson, who has owned the pottery for the past decade.
Initially those utilitarian products included ginger-beer bottles and food containers, but as Victoria's settlements began to grow so too did demand for industrial ceramics.
"They were producing a large volume of sewage pipes and acid jars, four-gallon ceramic jars to transport acid for use in gold mining," says Rod.
So it's surprising that among this industrial production line, Bendigo Pottery at the same time produced the highly prized majolica pottery, a selection of which is now being exhibited at Ararat Regional Art Gallery.
