R HALL Select Views

GYRN Castle FLINTSHIRE, North WALES Platter

This deeply intense blue platter comes from Ralph Hall, an earthenware and Stone China manufacturer at Swan Bank pottery works, Tunstall, Stoke On Trent.  This piece is from one of his most notable and major blue series called Select Views.  It was made for the export market and is highly sought amongst collectors.  It depicts Gyrn Castle.

One of these platters can also be seen at the Stickley Museum in Syracuse, NY. According to their website, "Stickley's affinity for 19th-century English transferware has only recently been recognized, and paints a more complicated picture of his tastes than previously acknowledged. Displayed at his home on Columbus Avenue in Syracuse, featured on the sideboard of the Dining Room in the Log House at Craftsman Farms, and used to adorn his furniture in promotional photographs from 1902, the logical conclusion is unmistakable: Gustav Stickley lived with and liked blue and white ceramics that had no relationship whatsoever to the Arts and Crafts movement".

History of GYRN CASTLE from Wikipedia

It was built between 1817 and 1824 by John Douglas, who incorporated parts of a previous house on the Gyrn estate, dating to the late 17th century, on a site overlooking the Dee estuary.

The estate of Gyrn belonged in the early 17th century to the Mostyns of Cilcain. In 1749 ownership passed to the Reverend Samuel Edwards of Pentre Hall by his marriage to Charlotte Mostyn. The estate was sold in 1750, and passed by inheritance through three owners until its sale in 1817 to John Douglas, a cotton manufacturer. Douglas remodelled the house in 1817–24, probably by adding a third storey, expanding the floorplan with the addition of the projecting dining room at the north end and a picture gallery and tower at the south end. The Douglas family sold Gyrn in 1853 to Edward Bates of Hampshire, a ship owner and politician. He did little to alter the house, but did add numerous outbuildings. The mansion was listed on 17 February 1983 "as a C19 country house notable for its castellated style typical of the C19 Picturesque movement, the result of remodelling an earlier house on the site".

Gyrn Castle remains in the ownership of the Bates family. The 2,000-acre (810-hectare) grounds now include two fishing lakes and facilities for shooting game. The house itself is hired out for wedding receptions and filming

Measures: 17" x 13.5”

Condition: Scratches, hairline on back, glaze flake, 

Marked on back: It has an impressed number and a printed mark reading R HALL’s SELECT VIEWS GYRN, Flintshire, North Wales Stone China