FROM baking bread to making pots - a couple who took over a village bakery and cafe two years ago have expanded the premises to allow them to develop their love of art.

Philip and Anna-Marie Magson had previously run a pottery in York for 20 years and were looking for a place where they could live and work when they came across the business opportunity in Welburn.

The cafe and bakery had plenty of outbuildings making it ideal to create a pottery where they could develop their creative talents and make their own ceramics.

Although they had never run a bakery before, they soon took to the new venture and the Leaf and Loaf cafe and bakery was born.

“It has certainly been a big change to what we have done before,” she said.

Bread is baked on a daily basis with the cafe offering a take-out service, as well as the popular coffee and cake, but the couple also wanted to introduce their creative side and as well as holding regular exhibitions to support budding artist, decided to develop their love of pottery by converting the outside buildings into a workshop to make items to sell items in the cafe.

Phil, who is an art teacher at Terrington Hall School, said they were now producing a range of ceramics for the home that includes mugs, bowls and jugs, alongside their daily baked bread.

"Fine Art and Ceramics were the subjects we’d studied before going into business and setting up home in York," he said.

"After 18 years, we left the world of clay and kilns behind, but in recent years began looking for an opportunity to get back to the potter’s wheel, possibly to combine with another enterprise."

"The café and bakery became available, with space potentially for a pottery, and a plan was hatched."

Phil said that while employing the traditional skills of hand throwing and painting, the pots are contemporary in design and decoration.

"Earthenware, a clay allowing a varied use of colour, is ‘thrown’ on the wheel, before being decorated with slips - runny clay, then fired in the kiln," he said.

"This bisque firing is followed by dipping the pots in glaze and another period in the kiln, the glost firing, reaching a temperature of 1120°c.

"Anyone who saw the Great Pottery Throwdown show on TV might now be familiar with these terms that may once have meant nothing to most people."

Phil said that making pottery was very therapeutic and not dissimilar to baking bread.

"In both cases you kneed the clay or dough in preparation, than bake or file in an oven or kiln to get a transformed material – bread or pot," he said.

For more information, go to leafandloaf.co.uk