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Invitation to tender: Interpretation Fit-Out Build Contractor - The Leach Pottery, St Ives, Cornwall
Closing date noon 12 June 2026
The Bernard Leach (St Ives) Trust Ltd invites tenders from suitably experienced contractors to deliver interpretation/exhibition fit-out works across the Leach Pottery site in St Ives, Cornwall. This commission forms part of a major £10 million capital redevelopment of one of the world's most significant studio pottery heritage sites, funded with support from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Contract Value: £375,000 - £400,000 (exclusive of VAT)
Practical Completion: 4 June 2027
Site Opening: 18 June 2027
Scope of Works:
The appointed contractor will act as Principal Designer and Principal Contractor, responsible for the manufacture, supply, and installation of four main packages: setworks and 3D elements; display showcases (including Government Indemnity Scheme standard cases); graphics and 2D elements production; and exhibition lighting supply.
Works span multiple spaces, including the historic Grade II listed Pottery buildings; refurbished 2008 extensions; new build Learning studios and reception areas; outdoor spaces, and cross-site wayfinding.
Full coordination with the client (The Bernard Leach (St Ives) Trust Ltd), base build contractors (Dow Jones Architects), interpretive designers (Extended Studio), and the separately appointed AV contractor will be required. Audiovisual hardware and software are contracted separately and are out of scope.
Key Dates:
* Site visits (compulsory): Tuesday, 28 April - Thursday, 28 May 2026
* Clarification deadline: Noon, Monday, 29 May 2026
* Clarifications published: Friday, 1 June 2026
* Submission deadline: Noon, Friday, 12 June 2026
* Interviews (shortlisted): Friday 26 June and Monday 29 June 2026
* Contract award: Monday, 30 June 2026
* Online kick-off meeting Friday, 13 July 2026
* Contract commencement: Monday, 20 July 2026
* On-site installation: Monday, 22 March - Monday, 31 May 2027
* Practical Completion: Friday, 4 June 2027
View full details of tender and all supporting documents at:
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/Notice/920bb370-1618-4726-847a-2bdc2e2e56c4
All bidders must complete a compulsory site visit before submitting.
Final submissions to Sara Matson at projectlead@leachpottery.com by noon on Friday, 22 May 2026.
Call for PhD Applications - Radical Ceramics and Alternative Communities: The Leach Pottery Legacy
In partnership with Falmouth University we are pleased to support a PhD student. This Research & Knowledge Exchange Doctoral Project brief summarises the priority areas of research interest under the heading of: Radical Ceramics and Alternative Communities - The Leach Pottery Legacy
We welcome all research degree applications aligned with and in response to this brief. This collaborative project proposes developing a research project looking at new and diverse narratives of the Leach Pottery and its community. Students and potters came from all over the world to the pottery in St Ives, and this international exchange created a vibrant ceramics community. In what way did the Leach Pottery, and the wider creative community in St Ives, become a diverse and international centre for ceramics in the 1960s?
As Jenni Sorkin argues in Live Form: Women, Ceramics and Community (2016) pottery is a way of participating and engaging with community through practice, and was particularly important for women and queer people in developing alternative communities that enabled potters to develop self-sufficient creative careers.
This proposed PhD project will look at newly acquired and unresearched archives at the Leach Pottery to uncover new and diverse narratives about the history and heritage of the Pottery’s community in 1960s and 1970s. Building on recent research on the Leach Pottery that looks at its legacy in local, national and international contexts, it will take a queer and postcolonial approach to archive research, and will look at the how the intersections of class, gender, race and sexuality created communities of making and social practice.
For full details and application process please visit Falmouth Univeristiy’s website as linked below.