This Christmas Tree is a truly unique piece of Belleek. As with many pieces of Belleek it has a story........

In December 1993 Belleek along with many other local businesses supported the Festival of Trees exhibition orgainsed by the charity Save the Children. The Belleek Christmas Tree was made to be auctioned at the annual charity dinner event in support of the Save the Children appeal, whose patron is HRH the Princess Royal.

During a chance meeting with Patricia McCauley (Belleek Visitors Centre Manager) and Derek Meldrum (Belleek Sales Manager) I was told that Belleek were making a Christmas Tree for a charity auction, we just had to go! Patricia and Derek said that they were hoping that the tree would make it through its final firing which was happening as we talked, just two days before the event !

The idea for a Belleek Christmas Tree had come from Derek who had attended the Festival of Trees event in the past donating some items of Belleek for the auction. This year he wanted something to "steal the show", so two weeks before the event (!) he asked Chief Designer Fergus Cleary if had he done anything about his idea for a Belleek Christmas Tree! The answer was no, so Fergus started with a clean sheet of paper and went about designing a Belleek Christmas Tree. He was assisted in this task by Belleek designer Maria McGrellis. Production of the tree was kept quiet but we heard that Managing Director John Maguire saw the tree during part of its production and when he enquired about it he was told "oh, its something for Derek".

On the evening of the Gala Dinner the Belleek Christmas Tree took pride of place beside the more traditional Christmas Tree which Belleek Pottery had decorated using Belleek Christmas ornaments. The evening consisted of a beautiful dinner followed by excellent entertainment including sketches and songs by presenters from local BBC and Commercial TV and Radio Stations. (George Jones, who recently auctioned the Belleek Pudsey Bear for £1,800 on BBC Radio Ulster for the BBC Children in Need appeal, was also there.)

The auction was conducted in a light hearted manner by a guest auctioneer and comedian who provided quick-witted remarks when the bids were made, extracting just that little bit of extra money from people for the evenings good cause. We were lucky to be successful in bidding for the Belleek Christmas Tree. Later when we saw Patricia and Derek they were not surprised that it was us who had bought the tree, however when they gave it to us they pointed out that there was a small firing crack on the tree and that it had not received the Belleek trademark.

They said that we should keep the unmarked tree until Belleek made a perfect one for us.
We had our Northern Ireland Belleek Collectors Group Christmas meeting the next night - we usually try to bring something interesting or our latest "find" to all the meetings. Needless to say we brought the Belleek Christmas Tree which took pride of place on the Belleek table. Tom Dooley pointed out that it is not just the First / Second period / Black Mark Belleek that is rare and collectable, even things produced by the Pottery only two weeks ago can be rare and collectable. There were rounds of applause for us for buying it and bringing it along and for Belleek Pottery for making it.

We kept the unmarked tree for almost 8 months during which time many attempts (around 7 in total) were made to make a perfect tree. There were numerous problems in making the tree, mainly due to its sheer size. It was the biggest single piece of Belleek designed and made at the Pottery in its recent history (and probably one of the quickest from pen to Parian !). A large parian tray had to be provided for the tree to sit on whilst in the kilns so that it would shrink at the same rate as the tree. (Belleek can shrink by up to one third during firing). Various other attempts were made to stop the tree cracking and splitting e.g. by placing it in the drying room and letting it dry slowly over a number of days and by experimenting with the thickness of the parian. The tree tended to split across the base, or along the "branches" or around the join between the lower section and the upper section - this was due to different thicknesses of parian and different rates of cooling/drying.

Just one tree going through the production process would occupy the space of three batts (or rows) in the kiln at each stage of its firing, the space of dozens of vases, Christmas Decorations, and other "bread and butter" Belleek items. The batts would have to have been re-arranged to allow the tree to be put in with other items. The expertiseof the Kiln workers would have been used to consider which other items should be put into the kiln along with the tree (to make sure that everything was able to be fired for the same length of time). They would also have considered where the tree should be positioned on the Kiln Truck to ensure that it would be fired at an even temperature (traditionally Belleek is placed so that larger items are in the centre surrounded by smaller items, called side ware, to make efficient use of the Kiln space and to help control the temperature of the larger pieces of ware).

The Pottery kept us up to date on their progress, Fergus was quite happy to continue until they got the perfect tree, however by this time everyone in the Pottery knew about it. Many anxious moments were spent waiting for the tree to come out of the kilns ....... will it be OK this time ? When we got the phone call to say that the Tree was ready for collection we were told that they had painted this one and added extra baubles and that they hoped we would like it!

The painting was described as being green around the edges of the branches with gold lines on the star. It took two people to paint the tree. Due to its awkward size and weight one person held the tree whilst the other painted it. We thought it was ambitious of them to paint it and put it through yet another firing (albeit at a lower temperature) considering the problems they had had in the past!
They said it was done as a thank you for being so patient.

We wondered what it would look like as we had become attached to the unmarked plain Parian tree. As it turned out Tom Dooley collected the new tree for us and we were lucky enough to have both trees in our collection for a while. We returned the unmarked tree to the Pottery so that it could be displayed in the Belleek Collectors Room (formerly the old Parian Shop) where it now sits in the window along with many other other interesting items.

It took so long to make because Fergus and Maria obviously had other projects to work on and the tree would have had to fit in with the production schedule, I'm sure they hadn't planned on making a christmas tree in the middle of June!

Belleek have said that they will never make another Christmas Tree again because of the problems in production.

Some details about the Belleek Christmas Tree........

TREE
Height :  Bottom to Star tip     19.00 inches (48.5cm)
Height :  Basket Base               3.25 inches (  8.5cm) specially made to support the Christmas Tree
Width :   Tree Base                12.00 inches (30.5cm)

BAUBLES
Number : 13  Belleek Baubles
Width :    1.25  inches (3.2cm)   each Bauble

Mark :    8th Blue Mark
Date :     21.6.94 (Painted in gold lettering on base - Painted by 'k' )