English Bell China - Shore & Coggins Longton

    Bought four of these little beauties at a secondhand store for a steal. They are the latest addition to my tea cup collection... well they would be if I had my collection with me here in the UK, so I guess they are really standalones until all my tea cups can be reunited. I miss them so. My teapots too. I have some empty bookcases they would brighten up. Ah well till then I'll just have to sip my tea, pinky up of course, from these English Bell China tea cups by Shore & Coggins or Longton.

A little history on the china:
    Shore & Coggins Limited produced these in their High Street Works, Longton, Stoke-On-Trent. Couldn't find the place, but there is the Gladstone Pottery Museum in an old Potteries, apparently the last complete Victorian Pottery factory in the UK. Must go have a look sometime.

    Back to Shore & Coggins. Their firm dated back to 1887 when it was J. Shore and Co. but in 1905 a new partnership lead to it being renamed Shore, Coggins & Holt, this only lasted 5 years and then Holt vanished and they became Shore & Coggins Ltd. The works closed in 1966.
The stamp on my cups puts them between 1930-1936.

Off to the land of Afternoon Tea

My posting will be sporadic over the next little while as I pack up my tea things and move across the pond back to the UK. I've got a lot to do and little time to do it in so blogging about tea will have to take a back seat to drinking my way through my tea collection (as sadly it can't travel with me) as I box my apartment up and sort through my overwhelming piles of stuff (I'm a bit of a pack-rat).

It's sad to be leaving my lovely Montreal and the best apartment I have ever had, but it'll be nice to be back in the land of tea drinkers. I'm really looking forward to finding new tea house and shops, but before I go I will try to get in a few more Montreal tea experiences.

Here's a peak at some of my tea cups before they are carefully wrapped and boxed up for storage.