The works
A small shop that fires colour into steel.
Kilnmarsh is one press, two dip tanks and a kiln in a brick works on Foundry Lane. We make a short range in a fixed colour card and nothing else — the discipline is the point.
Enamel is honest.
Enamel has been made the same way for two hundred years because there is no shortcut in it. Steel, glass, heat. It is heavier than plastic and colder to the touch than ceramic, and it lasts a lifetime if you do not drop it on a stone floor — and even then it chips honestly, showing the steel, rather than flaking like a lie.
We keep the range short so we can keep the colour exact. Eleven colourways, three oxides, one card that never changes season to season.
Four steps, by hand
Press
Sheet steel is pressed into the body — kettle, mug, basin — and the edges are rolled so a knock takes the metal, not the glaze.
Dip
Two coats of frit slip, the second carrying the oxide charge that decides the colourway. Nothing is sprayed; every piece is dipped by hand.
Fire
Twelve minutes at 820 °C turns the coat to glass. The colour is now a skin of coloured glass fused to steel — it cannot peel and it will not fade.
Sort
Every piece is checked against the card under one daylight lamp. Anything that reads off-colour goes back to the frit tank, not to the shelf.
Visit the works
The Enamel Works, Foundry Lane, Kilnmarsh KM4 2QD. Workshop shop open Thu–Sat, 10–5.