The Leach Pottery Studio and Museum, St Ives

In 1920 Bernard Leach arrived in St Ives with the Japanese potter Shoji Hamada to set up a pottery - an event that was fundamental to the development of studio pottery in the 20th century.

The pottery, built in a small field about three-quarters of a mile outside St Ives on the road to Land's End, was in continuous use beyond the death of Bernard Leach in 1979 until the death in 1997 of his third wife, the American potter Janet Darnell Leach.

After she died, the Bernard Leach (St Ives) Trust acquired, restored and developed the site and its buildings in order to create a museum, workshops, gallery and shop that opened last year.

Visitors enter the pottery through an attractive reception area with a display of Leach tableware and prints by the long-established St Ives artist, Breon O'Casey. From here a door leads into a series of rooms in the original pottery building. The first of these is the Kiln Room.

Lit by natural light, supplemented by discreet lighting controlled by a movement sensor, this houses four kilns. Dominating the room is the climbing kiln, the first such structure to be created in the west; built originally by Leach and Hamada in 1920, re-built in 1923, and in continuous use until the 1970s.

In the room, as well as electric and salt-glaze kilns, there is also an experimental kiln built by Janet Darnell Leach, in which she created unusual finishes for her pots made by using found materials, including seaweed, in the firing.

From here, visitors go into the studios and clay rooms. Here clay was stored and prepared; pots were thrown on the kick-wheel designed by Bernard's son, David Leach, and the potter Dicon Nance; glazes were mixed and applied and, by the fireplace, Leach gave his critiques of individual pots.
These rooms, once at the heart of the pottery in its heyday, are under-lit, cold and deserted. The presence of Leach and his assistants can barely be felt.

Labelling in these rooms is haphazard and it is difficult to avoid the feeling that the question of how the pottery should be displayed has yet to be resolved. There is no doubt that the Leach Pottery should be preserved, but greater thought needs to be given to its presentation.

From the Kiln Room, visitors pass through a corridor into the newly built areas. Buildings, accessed by a raised wooden walkway, surround a peaceful and entirely apposite Japanese style courtyard laid with white gravel.

One building houses a small simple exhibition area with plain wooden floor and a central seat for visitors. Warm and brightly lit, the room provides visitors with the chance to learn about the life of Leach and appreciate his work.

A wall display presents a concise timeline of his life and a glass wall-cabinet houses over 50 pieces of his work spanning his entire career, the majority lent by the Craft Studies Centre. Curated by the ceramicist Emmanuel Cooper, this exhibition is an excellent introduction to Leach and his central role in the development of studio pottery in this country.

The pity is that this exhibition ended in March, replaced by a series of exhibitions "examining the lives and works of potters who spent time in St Ives". What the Leach exhibition contains is so central to the pottery that it raises the question of how this information will be presented to visitors in the future.

New workshops have been built on the other side of the courtyard. Here, postgraduate students work alongside established potters and a new range of Leach tableware is being produced.

The tour ends in the gallery and shop housed in the cottage that was built alongside the pottery. Leach tableware, designed by lead potter Jack Doherty and available at accessible prices, is on display alongside examples of studio pottery by several makers, including Leach's grandson, John Leach, and Nic Harrison, the last student to be trained at the pottery.

Separating the shop from entrance foyer does mean that both have to be staffed separately. However, the new buildings, designed by GHK Architects, do blend sympathetically with the original pottery and good use has been made of a very small site.

The major strength of the Leach Pottery is that it is still a living entity - although this is the least visible aspect of it. Poor interpretation of the original parts of the pottery and a lack of access to the new workshops mean that an opportunity has been missed to make it more attractive for visitors and to promote understanding of the art and craft of pottery.

Peter Mason is a writer on culture based in Devon