This is our 100th post – and we’re turning to one of our favourites – artist & illustrator, Kenneth Townsend. In particular, we’re focusing on his ‘Menagerie‘ series of tiles. These tiles received a Design Centre award.
The ‘Menagerie’ series featured over 20 different animal designs. He also produced the ‘Horoscope’ and ‘London’ tile series.
A new Flickr Group celebrating the works of Kenneth Townsend has just been formed. You’re welcome to join and add your own images or just come and have a look!
If you’re interested in starting your own collection, they’re often available in vintage stores. They also come up for sale on eBay quite regularly. Have a look at seller simoncurtis. He’s had quite a few of these tiles for sale recently – and has kindly allowed us to use some of his photos in this blog post.
I'm glad to see that Ken's designs are gaining the recognition they richly deserve. many thanks for linking to my site (www.kenneth-townsend.co.uk) and I hope it proves helpful to readers.
Just one small point: Ken produced and sold these tiles independently. The link to Carter Tiles is spurious – the tiles simply had its name on the back – and that company did not market them in any way.
I will also be making an announcement soon regarding an exiting new development regarding Ken's memorabilia.
Hope this helps.
Hi David,
Thanks for the lovely feedback. We've updated the post accordingly.
I managed to pick up three of these tiles (Tiger, Moose and Cow) for 20p at a church fete, I used them in my kitchen for putting hot pans on until I realised how important they were
Nooooo! Hope you didn't scratch them up too much! Great find though!