"Brown Betty" teapot in UK? (Partly rant)

I got mine in Tesco, though they don't seem to have got any more in since I bought mine last year.

I'd try John Lewis (Oxford Street), or perhaps Whittard's.

But perhaps you've already tried them.

Try a supermarket like Sainsbury or Tesco, both stock "brown bettys" in various colours - white is the in thing at the moment, also different sizes. Probably need a sizeable supermarket not the little ones.

Good luck. I lived there for several years, and only found the real ones in people's homes or antique stores. There are plenty of nice brown pots, but most are brown glaze over porcelain. The red clay base is rarer - someone must still make them, but I couldn't find them.

Not to say there's anything wrong with porcelain; my Arthur Wood looks and works fine. But some of us prefer the real thing. If you find out, please post the info.

-DM

Almost anywhere urban outside Central London. Central London is a tourist hell-hole, no real people live there or even shop there any more. Anyone you see is really an employee of the tourist board, paid to add mockney charm to their surroundings. Apart from anyone supposedly working in tourism, who will be an animatronic robot. Actually most people you see are also tourists, equally lost and confused.

Real "Brown Bettys" are hard to find - dark brown glaze, couple of cream rings painted around the lid hole. For one in the "proper" plumage, you'll probably need to go North.

In any other colour, you should find them all over the place. Cookshop (Bristol, Bath & Cardiff) is my local favourite for such things, but a commonplace tea and coffee chain like Wittards (most medium-town high streets) ought to have something. Even the big department stores (John Lewis, Debenhams) will have one. Mine is dark blue, creamy yellow inside, pours straight without dripping and is made by Denby. You should find Denby stuff quite easily.

Do you interpret 'brown betty' as a style of pot, bowed and squatty walls, or a pedigree Stoke-on-Trent,Rockingham glaze,terracotta clay?

Jim

This help any?;

TBerk

Thanks for all the replies. I'm very fussy I'm afraid, I was really thinking of the proper Staffordshire brown betties rather than the generic brown china teapots you see. In fact specifically I was thinking of the four-cup model. Even the places that sell the generic things only seem to have two-cup or eight-cup teapots.

And anyway, what's all this from Andy Dingley about London being a phoney theme park? I live and work in the centre and I disagree.

Martin (Gawd bless the Queen Mum, guvnor)