Reflecting on Dartington

The last remaining factory-scale crystal and glassworks in the country, 50-year-old Dartington Crystal remains at the cutting edge of creative glass, while representing a precious heritage of technique and skill

- Mel Sherwood

Over the last 50 years, Dartington Crystal has become a household name, respected and admired for its contemporary yet classic creations. It is also one of north Devon’s most important employers, and that was exactly the goal of its founders back in the mid 1960s. ‘It was originally a social enterprise, started by the Dartington Hall Trust,’ explains Richard Halliday, commercial director at Dartington. ‘They had a record of starting rural, craft-based industries.’ The Trust had already transformed much of south Devon with such initiatives, before turning its efforts to the north of the county, where unemployment was a growing concern.

The Trust called upon one artistic contact to spearhead the project: Frank Thrower. He was a designer working with Portmeirion Pottery, creating glassware for import in Sweden. ‘Frank loved the Scandinavian design style,’ explains Hilary Green, Dartington’s head of design. ‘He wanted to carry on that ethos [in Devon] – simple clean lines, beautiful, functional shapes – because there was nothing like that being made here at the time. The only other British glass then was traditional cut crystal.’