St Agnes Candle Co

Every candle here starts life as a lump of Cornish clay.

It began as a weekend hobby in a converted barn on the cliffs at St Agnes: one pottery wheel, a great many hours of self-teaching and, by the brand's own cheerful admission, some fairly wonky early pots, all long since retired. The potter came to the wheel from offshore work in the Irish Sea, which perhaps explains the preference for a workshop with a view of the water. Everything is thrown, glazed and fired in that barn, under the supervision of a dachshund called George, whose standards on quality control are, we suspect, a good deal higher than ours.

Each candle starts as a pot thrown from local St Agnes clay, which is then filled with soy wax and a cotton wick and finished with botanicals dried in the barn, many of them picked from the surrounding fields. No two come out of the kiln alike, which makes choosing one slower than it ought to be and is, regrettably, entirely the point. Once the candle has burned down, the pot stays, which is the sort of arrangement we wish applied to more things.

The same kiln turns out mugs, cups and small tapas dishes in soft, beachy glazes, so the table can match the mantelpiece without anyone having planned it. We set out to buy a single mug and did not, it turns out, have the strength of character required.

For more for the mantelpiece, have a browse of our candles and home fragrance and pottery collections, or carry on to glasses, cups and mugs, tableware and kitchen and dining. There are more businesses like this one in small batch artisans, and more close to home in our British-made collection.