Not a great deal seems to be known about Barbara Linley-Adams. She is very much under-rated, but it is only a matter of time until her full talents are widely recognised. It is known that she worked for Crown Staffordshire China Ltd. (now part of the Wedgwood Group) and was Head of the Flower Making Department there in 1962. Her models at that time included Birds and Bird Groups. We also know that she did similar sculptures for Royal Adderley China, and numerous items have been found, clearly labelled with her name on their bases. Just recently a 5" high Owl sculpture was found with the BLA initials on the edge of the base, and made of resin painted to give a bronze effect. It was made by Purbeck Designs of Swanage who unfortunately no longer exist.

In 1972 Barbara started modelling for Poole Pottery and she produced numerous moulded sculptures and relief plates in stoneware, mainly of animal and bird studies. The stoneware range was unusual in that a speckled blend of liquid clay (slip) was used which was decorated with a dark brown oxide and required no glaze - the majority of faults occur during the glazing of pottery and consequently those faults were eliminated. Although Barbara retired in 1983, she continued to produce sculptures for Poole from her studio in Budleigh Salterton, Devon, until 1988. It seems she then fully retired and later died on 26 April 1995. The photographs above show Barbara at work in Poole, Barbara at home, and Barbara with her very skilful and talented modelmaker, Joe Leadbeater, who still worked at the Poole pottery until 2006, and was actively involved in the re-creation of our range of animals. Joe is the very person who ensured the initial survival of the moulds - he enjoyed working on them so much that he couldn't bear to part with them, even at the risk of dismissal. Unfortunately Joe lost his job in December 2006 when the company was placed in Administration for the second time in 5 years, and he was not around to rescue the moulds again. Once the decision had been taken in September 2006 to discontinue the Poole animal range the moulds were no longer needed and were scrapped.

Barbara Linley-Adams is descended from the Blathwayts of Dyrham Park in Gloucestershire which is now a National Trust property and open to the public. It was here that Barbara spent part of her childhood and where she developed an interest in nature by observing and drawing the flora and fauna. As a young girl she delighted in finding Fawns lying in the bracken on the rolling parkland each spring. Dyrham Park is an estate with a large classical house built for William Blathwayt between 1692 & 1704, and was Barbara's family seat. Charles Blathwayt, Barbara's grandfather, was in the diplomatic service in India. His wife Georgina, was a talented amateur artist and many of her paintings from India had been passed on to Barbara, including an album of watercolours illustrating a Tiger shoot, a herd of Samba Deer and a Leopard. Charles and Georgina retired to Sidmouth in Devon, and their daughter Gladys married the Reverend Linley-Adams, vicar of St Johns in St John's Wood London. Unfortunately the Reverend Adams died when Barbara was three and, at the age of six, she was sent off to boarding school in Switzerland.

Being separated from her family and pets was painful for Barbara, but being re-united with her mother, brother and sister during the holidays was fun. Sadly she lost her fiance (a Naval officer), and was never married. She met him while she was a motorboat coxswain in the W.R.N.S. charged with ferrying personnel and ammunition out to warships anchored in Plymouth Harbour during the War.

She studied wood and stone sculpture at both the Slade and the Central Schools of Art in London, before moving to Finland to study pottery design at the Helsinki School of Industrial Art. Barbara was well travelled, and spent some months as a nanny on a sheep ranch in the outback of Central Queensland - unbelievably the young girl she looked after there has made contact with us by e-mail. Whilst there she carved a series of Australian animals in different types of wood these were exhibited in Sydney. She also lived in the United States for two years, where she taught Wood and Stone Sculpture at the University of Utah, and when she wasn't teaching, she used to go off on fossil hunts in the deserts of Arizona and Utah. During one visit to Texas nobody would stop long enough for her to watch the huge furry Spiders that crossed the road. In New York, where her work was also exhibited, she found an unusual dead bird on the beach off Long Island. Identified as a Greater Shearwater, it is now held in the New York Museum of Natural History.

When working for "Exclusive China" in New York in 1972, Barbara Linley-Adams considered the possibility of working with Poole Pottery. The Company's export manager had a meeting with her at the Atlanta City Fair and subsequently invited her to visit the Pottery once she returned to England. She started modeling for Poole Pottery in 1972 and she was soon to gain the recognition of her colleagues, not only for her undoubted talents but also her quiet and friendly nature. The younger element saw her not so much a mother figure, but more a maiden aunt whose vagueness at times was part of her charm.

Much of her work was inspired by her passion for wildlife, she was also on the executive committee of the Wildlife Artists' Association started by Sir Peter Scott. Much of her early research was carried out with the help of books, but Barbara insisted that there was nothing quite like seeing the real thing and preferably in its natural surroundings. This was the part of her work she enjoyed most, and a walk through the woods or along the river bank usually paid a rich reward. A special clay from the famous clay beds of Dorset was blended and prepared and this had been the subject of special developement work at the factory over the previous two years and used by the late Guy Sydenham.Barbara felt right from the beginning that this clay could be used to produce models that would present exactly the large amount of detail she felt her work required.

The first piece that she produced for Poole was originally thought to be a Wren sitting on a stump but it now seems that her first model was actually the Puffin. It seems Barbara didn't like her Wren model and so tried it sitting on an Apple, and the Wren on a Stump and the Puffin remained as trials. Our experience with the Wren on a Stump model is that it's very unstable and easily topples if knoecked, resulting in broken and missing beaks, and perhaps this factor contributed to its early replacement.

The first of the sculptures to be produced in a "Limited Edition" was the very large Canada Goose which was originally made exclusively for Canada and the United States but later sold in the UK. The Mallard Duck soon followed and then came the Sandpipers and the Grouse. There are over a hundred Stoneware Sculptures of birds and animals and many plates produced in a low relief - mostly designed at Poole by Barbara between 1972 and her retirement in 1983. Others were subsequently created in her own Studio in Budleigh Salterton.

Barbara retired in 1983 but continued to produce sculptures for Poole from her own Studio in Budleigh Salterton in Devon for another five years. One of her last commissions for the Pottery was the endearing figure of a puppy asleep on a slipper. Sadly she died at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital on the 26th April 1995 which came as a considerable shock to many who knew her, despite the knowledge that she had been in poor health for some time. If you can add anything to our knowledge base about Barbara Linley-Adams, we would love to hear from you and urge you to please contact us with any details. We will update this page, and hopefully build up a more comprehensive history with your help. Thank you.