The pit
Fireclay, dug and left out.
Our clay comes from a pit behind the works. It is dug in autumn and left in the open for two winters so the frost breaks it down, then cut into slabs with a wire.
Encaustic tile makers Jackfield, Shropshire
Pattern, pressed into clay.
Victorian-style encaustic and geometric floor tiles, made by hand from Shropshire clay. Colour goes all the way through, so the pattern never wears off.
Scroll to make a tile
01 Clay
Clay
The colours
Four slips, no paint.
Colour in an encaustic tile is clay all the way through. Cobalt oxide makes the blue, iron the terracotta and manganese the black. A pale clay stays cream.
The pattern
Drawn with dividers.
Every design starts as a drawing made with brass dividers. Thin brass strips are then cut and soldered to the same shape, one compartment for each colour.
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02 The mould and slip
The mould and slip
Set the dividers
A brass cage.
The divider plate drops into a cast iron frame. Each compartment will take one colour, and the walls are thin enough to leave only a hairline between them.
Pour the slip
One colour at a time.
Liquid clay, as thick as double cream, is poured into the compartments by hand: black border first, then terracotta, cobalt and cream. Steady hands matter here.
Lift away
The pattern stays.
The dividers lift straight up and the colours stand level against each other, already a tile. Nothing is printed and nothing is glazed on top.
Slip poured0of 4 colours
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03 The press
The press
To the press
Backed with clay dust.
The mould slides along the rails and fine, dry clay dust is sifted over the slip to make the body of the tile. Dust and slip fuse together under the screw.
The screw
A hundred tonnes, slowly.
Two men swing the iron arms and the screw comes down. The pressure squeezes the water out and locks the pattern into the body. You can feel the floor move.
Out and stacked
Turned out whole.
The tile is lifted out, trimmed by hand and carried to the drying racks. A dozen or so pass through the press every hour, never more.
Press load0tonnes
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04 Drying and the kiln
Drying and the kiln
The drying racks
Three weeks of patience.
Tiles dry slowly on slatted racks and are turned every few days. Rush this and the water turns to steam inside the clay, and the tile cracks.
The kiln
Fired to 1,120 degrees.
The kiln is fired for 36 hours with the tiles stacked on the car. The slips vitrify, the colours lock in and the tile turns as hard as stone.
The door
Cooled, then opened.
The kiln cools for two days before the door is opened. A clear glaze goes on and the tiles are fired again, cooler. That second firing is where the shine comes from.
Kiln20degrees C
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05 Laying the floor
Laying the floor
Set out
From the middle.
A floor is set out from its centre so the border lands evenly at both ends. The first tile goes down on a bed of adhesive and the rest follow it.
Laying
Tile by tile.
A hall eleven tiles wide and twenty-four long takes two fitters about three days. Each tile is tapped level and the pattern is checked as it grows.
Grout and shine
Sealed and polished.
The joints are grouted narrow, the surface is washed down twice and the floor is sealed. Light runs across the glaze and the pattern finally reads as one.
Tiles laid0floor and dado
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06 Your turn
Choose a pattern.
Watch it re-lay.
Pick a pattern and a colourway. The floor and the dado lift, turn over and settle again, tile by tile, so you can judge it in the hall before you order.
Pattern
Colourway
- Pattern
- Victorian hall
- Colours
- Hall classic
- From
- £148/m²
Rosettes and diamonds on a chequer, a dark band and a cream border: the pattern you find in a Shropshire front hall.
Drag the hall to look around
07 The range
Tiles, patterns and fitting.
Tiles, by the square metre
- Heritage encaustic, 305 mm£148/m²
- Geometric field tiles£96/m²
- Border and frieze strips£24/m run
Fourteen millimetres thick, fired to 1,120 degrees. Sold by the box of eleven.
Bespoke patterns
- Design and brass tooling£480
- Pressing, minimum 10 m²£178/m²
- Sample tile in your colours£35
Bring a drawing, a photograph of an old floor or just a room size. About ten weeks from drawing to boxes.
Fitted and sealed
- Laid, grouted and sealed£62/m²
- Hall or porch up to 8 m²£640 flat
- Lifting and relaying an old floor£85/m²
Our own fitters, who also lay the showroom floor. Setting out, adhesive, narrow grout and sealing are all in the price.
08 The small print
Small batches, old methods.
- Firing temperature
- 0degrees C
- held for six hours at the top
- Tiles pressed a week
- 0
- one press, two pairs of hands
- Designs in the pattern book
- 0
- copied from floors up and down the Severn
- First tile pressed here
- 0
- stopped for forty years, lit again by us
09 Get a quote
Tell us the room.
We send a quote, a sample tile and a fitting date within two working days.
Thank you. We will measure up your pattern, put a sample tile in the post and write back within two working days.