The spacious center has the look of a long, sophisticated barn. The interior use of raw lumber gives it a rustic look in keeping with the buildings used for pottery studios. 500 A.D. The Moravian earthenware pots on display date from 1750 through 1820, and early glazes are explained in printed panels. The history of potters who came to the Randolph and Moore County area 200 years ago is examined, and some of their jugs and other utilitarian wares are on display. Large photographs show the early potters at work.
Grave markers made in the shape of jugs are some of the earliest works.
Some were salvaged in pieces from a local graveyard. A bank and a salt glazed stoneware jug made in 1890 in the Fayetteville pottery of E. A. Poe are on view. A genealogy panel links local potters to their forefathers who immigrated from Staffordshire, England, in search of the rich pottery clay they could dig from the earth. The area was rich with potteries until the early part of this century when modern refrigeration, prohibition and cheap, mass produced vessels wiped out the need for utilitarian pottery. Most of the area potters went back to farming for a living.