Pots, food and the Three Stags’ Heads
The Wardlow Mires Pottery Festival grew from Geoff and Pat Fuller’s shared love of handmade pottery, good food and bringing people together. Its beginnings were inside the Three Stags’ Heads, where they held private shows in the room now known as the gallery before branching out to a small gathering of potters outside the next door bunkhouse to test their concept further. That connection between the festival and the pub remains at the heart of our story.
A celebration of the table
Both potters themselves, Geoff and Pat understood the pleasure of using handmade objects every day: a favourite mug, a bowl passed around the table, or a jug brought out to share with friends. The festival gave that pleasure a wider audience, bringing the people who make pots together with the people who use them.
In 2012, they established the Wardlow Mires Pottery and Food Festival. Its guiding idea was simple: to show pottery made for everyday use alongside food producers, celebrating what we eat and the handmade objects we serve it in. An account written by exhibiting potter Margaret Brampton in September 2012 recalls exactly that combination, with time spent selling pots and sampling food throughout the weekend. Brampton Pottery’s 2012 account, Arts Derbyshire
“A Celebration of the Table” continues to express what the festival is about. Visitors can meet makers, hear about their work and choose pieces to take home and use. From its beginnings in the pub, the event has grown into a gathering of around 80 potters from across the UK, held in a marquee in the countryside at Wardlow Mires. Wardlow Mires Pottery Festival
Geoff and Pat’s legacy
Geoff and Pat created more than an annual event. The festival became a place for friendships, conversations and a shared enthusiasm for pottery and food. Following Geoff’s death in 2022 and Pat’s in 2023, those connections have helped carry their work forward. Pub Gallery, Anglian Potters’ tribute to Pat
Today, Pat’s brother John Davison organises the festival with a team of family, friends and volunteers. It continues to welcome established and emerging makers, while also helping preserve the place where it began.
All proceeds from the festival, after costs have been covered, go directly towards the restoration and upkeep of the Three Stags’ Heads and its former pottery. Every ticket purchased helps preserve these historic buildings and continue Geoff and Pat’s legacy.
By August 2026, proceeds from the previous year’s festival had funded new heating and plumbing, alongside further work on the former pottery intended to bring ceramic skills back to the building. Arts Derbyshire
.jpg)
The pub where it began
Long before the festival, the Three Stags’ Heads was part of the working landscape of Wardlow Mires. Originally a farmhouse with adjoining agricultural buildings, the surviving structure is dated by Historic England to the mid-to-late eighteenth century, with later additions and alterations. Its position beside an important route through the district helped it develop into a public house, although the date when it first began serving drinks is uncertain. Historic England
Farming and hospitality once existed side by side. Stone divisions between livestock stalls survive in the adjoining outbuildings, while the small rooms and substantial fireplaces inside the pub recall its domestic beginnings. The building was Grade II listed on 23 June 2000 in recognition of its architectural and historic importance. Historic England
Changes came gradually. The bar counter was installed in the 1940s, with its frontage added in the 1980s. Stone-flagged floors, simple furnishings and the old fireplace preserve the character of a traditional country drinking room. Today, CAMRA recognises the pub with three stars for an interior of outstanding national historic importance. CAMRA’s heritage record
Potters and publicans
Geoff and Pat took over the pub’s licence on 14 October 1988. Over the next three decades, pottery and pub life became closely entwined. They worked on the premises and displayed their ceramics there, making the Three Stags’ Heads a meeting place for drinkers, makers and visitors. Sheffield & District CAMRA, Pub Gallery
Real ale and dogs also became familiar parts of its identity. The house beer, Black Lurcher, was named after one of the Fullers’ dogs. Its brewer, Abbeydale Brewery in Sheffield, has a particularly long connection with the pub: the brewery’s very first cask, Absolution, was sent to the Three Stags’ Heads on 16 August 1996. In 2026, Abbeydale marked thirty years of that relationship and confirmed that Black Lurcher was still brewed exclusively for the pub. Pub Gallery, Abbeydale Brewery
Geoff and Pat retired from running the pub in 2019, when Cath and Andy took over its day-to-day operation. That same year, it was named Sheffield & District CAMRA’s District Pub of the Year. Sheffield & District CAMRA, CAMRA
A continuing family connection
The Three Stags’ Heads is now owned by Stuart Davison, Nichola Fisher and Trevor Davison, nephews and niece of Pat and Geoff Fuller. Cath and Andy continue to operate the pub, preserving the distinctive atmosphere that has made it a much-loved part of Wardlow Mires.
John Davison (Pat’s brother) and his wife Brenda Davison, along with Abby Worsnip, lead the pottery festival, supported by family, friends and volunteers, continuing Geoff and Pat’s celebration of handmade pottery and good food.
The festival and the pub remain closely connected. One brings makers and visitors together for a celebration of the table; the other is the place where that story began. Through the care of family, friends, volunteers and publicans—and the support of everyone who visits—the next chapter continues.