Miniature Ceramic Cottages

A set of four handmade miniature ceramic cottages, slab-built from terracotta clay with four different glazes, made in our workshop in Scotland. Buy one cottage or take the full set.

The making. Each cottage is built by hand from terracotta clay slabs — cut, scored, and joined into a small house form rather than thrown on a wheel. Four different coloured glazes are applied across the walls (one per cottage), and the roof is left unglazed so the warm terracotta clay sits in contrast to the colour below. The walls are deliberately built thin and the houses left hollow, so a battery-operated string light can be threaded through them to glow softly from inside.

How it looks and feels. Each cottage has a slightly wonky, hand-built character — not the rigid geometry of factory pieces. The four glaze colours (Firebrick Red, Tall Dark Blue, Tall Grey Brown, and Small Blue Taupe) sit warm against the matte terracotta roofs. The smaller cottages stand around 5.5 cm tall, the taller ones around 7.5 cm tall. When lit from inside on a dark evening they read as a tiny village.

Use it for:

• A small mantel or shelf village, threaded with a string of LED fairy lights
• A window-ledge display year-round, or grouped under a real Christmas tree
• A child’s dolls-house-adjacent piece on a play shelf
• A housewarming gift for someone moving into their first home — one cottage or all four
• Given individually as small stocking fillers, or together as a family-of-houses set

A considered gift for a friend moving house, a Christmas village collector, or anyone who decorates a mantel for the seasons — housewarmings, Christmas, or simply because.

Dust with a soft, dry brush or cloth. Wipe with a slightly damp cloth if needed.

Smaller cottages: H 5.5 cm | W 6 cm | D 3.5 cm. Taller cottages: H 7.5 cm | W 5 cm | D 4 cm.