Ceramicist and judge on Channel 4’s The Great Pottery Throw Down, Rich Miller lives in the Surrey Hills with his wife Anna and daughter Bea. He shares how his home captures his family’s history and the possessions that shape his life and inspire his work.
When we moved here in 2017, we tore the place apart, creating an open-plan space downstairs. It’s not for everyone, but I love any opportunity for us to be together. Despite our more-is-more maximalist mentality, we have white walls as it allows the things within the space to sing. An interior designer would probably say the painting of Anna’s great-great-grandfather George Hutton Potts on the sitting room wall is too big for the space. He was chairman of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and it once hung in his office in China. I chuckle to think how it’s ended up in an ex-council semi in Surrey!
It’s the centrepiece for proper conversations, laughter and shared feelings. Of course, it’s been used and abused, splattered in paint and pen marks, but it’s lasted far longer than Anna and I dreamed it would when we bought it for £90 in a junk shop in Petersfield shortly after moving in together when we were 19. In years to come, I’m sure we’ll look at the paint marks and say, ‘Do you remember when…?’
Growing up in a village in West Sussex, I experienced a lot of racism. People would shout things from passing cars, telling me to go home. I wanted to blend in and often felt anxious, so I’d retreat at home, losing myself in Lego and creating things out of cardboard with my mum, then ceramics, which I discovered at secondary school. What I couldn’t vocalise was expressed through making.
It’s a gilded straight-sided drinking vessel that dates back to the 1930s, which my dad carried throughout his military career. The gold band has been enamelled at the top and has slightly worn away over the years. Sadly, all I know about my grandad’s life is that he was a carpenter in Guyana and came to the UK ten years before my dad and worked on corporation buses in Darlington. I’ve only got one photograph of him, but the glass somehow connects me to that side of the family.
He was just 11 when he and his younger brother came to the UK. At 15, he enlisted in the military and spent nearly three decades in the Royal Marines Band, playing the tuba and string bass. After Dad died in 2016, I inherited his vinyl records and his Audi TT, which I sold to buy a record player and speakers. Now, when the LPs are played, they fill the whole downstairs, be it The Beach Boys, Sibelius or the record where he’s performing in Canada with the Royal Marines. Still being able to hear him play is so special.
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I never heard him play after he left the Marines. He turned his back on music and the house that was once filled with melodies turned silent, then the string bass fell into disrepair. It’s now in pieces, held together by a cover in the loft. One day, I would love to get it restored.
Every morning when I step inside, if the kilns have been on, there’s an incredible smell of scorched earth in the dry atmosphere. I feel truly at home and ideas come more easily here. I put on Radio 4 or a favourite podcast or I just enjoy the silence for thinking. During life’s stressful times, I’ve leaned on making to help me through, especially when my brother-in-law Jack died in 2013. The monotony and familiarity of making is therapeutic.
Above the bookcase is a row of ceramic plates made by friends and makers we admire, including Deiniol Williams, who mixes stones from the Welsh hills and Yorkshire landscape into his clay. Our mugs are made by a variety of ceramicists including my friend Charlie Collier. When I sip tea from one of his, I mentally return to conversations we’ve had. Every week, I get sent photographs of people holding up a cup of tea in a mug I’ve made – there’s something gratifying about being part of someone’s everyday ritual.
My work in ceramics is often about total control, throwing, drying and firing with precision, and my role on television also often puts a spotlight on perfection and skill. But the garden asks for none of that. It is a partnership with the elements and where I feel a total sense of ease. In the greenhouse, nature is in charge and there is no one there to judge my tomatoes!
We’re slightly bursting at the seams here and in order to make more ambitious work, I need more space. When we leave, it won’t just be bricks and mortar we’re walking away from. Every wall holds a memory: Bea growing up, the things we’ve made here, the conversations around the table. Those memories will travel with us but part of our spirit will be left behind.
• Fired Legacies: The Ceramic World of Rich Miller runs from 16 April to 28 June at Watts Contemporary Gallery in Compton, Surrey. Follow @RichMillerPots on Instagram.
