About the Cat Pottery

Moorside Design, in the village of West Burton, Wensleydale is the family run business of Shirley and Barrie Nichols and daughter Sarah who have been designing and making ceramic cats since 1982.

Shirley and Sarah both studied sculpture, Sarah at Edinburgh College of Art and Shirley at Leeds and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College, London. With a combined 11 years of professional training plus many years of practising the art and craft of the sculptor, the Moorside Cat is instantly recognizable as one of the better examples of cat sculpture.

Our family cats Chloe,Orlando,Zoe,Tilda, Millie and.since July 2007, Ruby are the inspiration behind the sculptures upon which all the ceramic,metallic and stone cats are based. Our cats are not modelled in abstract or geometric forms, nor are they caricatures. They are lifelike and demandingly tactile as Orlando, the stone cat at the entrance demonstrates, having achieved the smooth patina of a much stroked cat. Below are Zoe and Orlando.