Shallowpool Dolls

Shallowpool Dolls were made in the Cornish village of Shallowpool, near Looe, by three friends - Joan Rickarby, Muriel fogarty, and Peggy Price - who started the business there in 1952.   They produced dolls until the late 1980s, when the business closed.   Many of the dolls in the Shallowpool range were based on famous Cornish characters, like Dolly Pentreath from Mousehole, and Mary Kelynack, a Newlyn fishwife.   Shallowpool dolls were contemporaries of the Peggy Nisbet range, and though many of their characters were based on Cornish personalities never included in the Nisbet family, they did make a number of dolls that overlapped with them.

These dolls included Queen Elizabeth I, Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, and Prince Edward, Son of Henry VIII, plus some similar characters, like the cornish fishwife.

Shallowpool dolls were made with Plaster-of-Paris faces and hands, carefully painted and varnished, and fixed to a padded wire armature.   They were beautifully modelled, and the costumes of the Royal dolls were finished to an extremely high standard, so it is understandable that they might end up in a Nisbet collection, (either by accident or design), where in our opinion, they could only enhance it!

(If you would like to find out more about Shallowpool Dolls, we recommend the excellent book, "Cornish Shallowpool Dolls" by Susan Brewer, available from Amazon)

(17th august 2014 - Our thanks to Michael B, (cousin of Peggy Price), for supplying some corrections to the information shown on this page)

News

21st September 2023

 

Important Announcement

 

My dear wife, Christine, passed away on the 8th December, 2021, after 8 weeks in hospital. I was by her side, when she slipped away from me peacefully, with no pain or suffering.

 

Chris had been struggling with a slow decline in health, associated with a progressive, untreatable, and ultimately terminal lung disease, and finally succumbed to her old adversary, Pneumonia.

 

We had been friends for 55 years, together as a couple for 50 years, and married just a month short of 48 years, when she died.   

 

This website was Chris's idea, and I did all the technical stuff, to make it work.   After news of Chris's passing reached her close friends in the doll collecting world, I was deeply touched and gratified to hear their tributes to my dear wife, and I must thank them all for their kindness and support.   Ultimately, it was her doll friends that gave me the courage to continue with the website.

 

In the months before her eventual hospitalisation, Chris had outlined a number of additions and changes she wanted to make to the website, and it is my intention to honour those wishes, and to implement the changes we had considered, over the coming weeks and months.

 

I must apologise to all those who have written to us via the website, only to have your emails go unanswered.   Unfortunately, the email system had been hacked aroung the time Chris was going into hospital, and many emails must have been lost, as a result.

 

As you might imagine, I felt completely broken by Chris's loss, and it is only now, almost 22 months after her passing, that I have felt strong enough to even look at the website again.   

 

My aim is to continue with the website, and to implement Chris's aims for her many new ideas as soon as I can.   In the meantime, I have hopefully got the email system sorted out, and I will attempt to answer any enquiries as soon as I can, and to send replies with the same high degree of accuracy that a reply from Chris would have had.

 

From now on, I will be flying solo, whilst my co-pilot and guide will be soaring much higher, (though she is always in my heart, and in my thoughts).

 

My thanks to all our website visitors for your continued support

 

Dave (also known as Arthur), and Chris, (my lost love, Guinevere)

 

Christine Poulten

25th December 1949 - 8th December 2021