THE ART OF GLASS

Though glassmaking is an ancient skill, the process used in Torrington is unlike any other in Britain…

‘It is like watching a dance,’ says Hilary Green, head of design at Dartington Crystal, of the glassmaking process in their north Devon factory. ‘ The Scandinavian way uses a large team of people working in the round. So we might, for a tumbler, have eight or nine people making it – they may well produce 250 tumblers in two hours,’ Green says. This ultra- ef !cient system that the original Swedish team brought with them to the UK in the 1960s is unique in Britain, though the actual process of glassmaking and blowing has changed little for hundreds of years.

Of course, some aspects of the factory experience have changed since its !rst years. ‘ The foreman of the works would certainly have led with a more !rm hand,’ says Neil Hughes, Dartington’s managing director, and it would be rare to !nd a topless man in the factory today. The design process was different then, as well. ‘Frank Thrower was a real ideas man, but he couldn’t be bothered with technical designing,’ Green tells us.

Another change came when the factory !rst opened to the public in 1970. It offered visitors the chance to see the ‘dance’ of glassmaking in all its glory, and to watch skills in action that glass-blowers have used since ancient times.

FROM TOP A glass- blower crafts the red- hot material at the master’s chair; the charmer behind Dartington Glass, Frank Thrower: ‘He was such a wicked man, a party goer and a big, big character,’ Green tells us; the factory "oor in full swing – multiple men work together to create their glasswares; the queue to enter the factory on its !rst day open to the public in 1970