Past & Present

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In 1997 Marisa Arna was a potter, recently having moved to England from her native Greece. She set up her studio here in Thorpe-le-Soken making fine, thrown porcelain, selling from the studio and from galleries and shops. This sequence of pictures show our studio from the early days of the 20th century, when it was a bakery, through to the present day via a gallery and, since 2007, a jewellery studio.

Bakery

For much of its time the shop has been a baker's. This is Orlando Hooks (what a name!) outside it.
Wartime

The building is dated 1897. This is the original shopfront when it belonged to Burgess.
Celebration

Obviously a celebration. Now owned by the Moon family of bakers.
1997

We took the shop over in 1997. It had been a newsagents for some years and badly neglected.
2001

This is its 2nd incarnation, a rather stylish (we think) look, still a ceramic studio.
2004

The opening day of the Gallery when we introduced a lot of work by other artists.
2004

Same day as before, but looking very elegant in the evening.
2006

A pleasant spring day, and now a jewellery studio. It has proved to be a good idea.
2009

Christmas, a smart change of colour, and some fine bespoke jewellery cabinets.
2012

Still when we were selling crafts as a gallery
2016

Christmas, we've become an exclusively jewellery gallery