This magnificent museum and ancient pottery is also a workshop where pots and clay objects are handmade.

 

Ollerias is a thousand-year-old village mentioned in documents dating back to the 9th century. Its name perfectly describes the activity that took place there for centuries.

 

The building where the museum is located, which has been completely restored, was an old pottery where several generations of the Ortiz de Zárate family worked clay until 1958, when the Urrunaga reservoir flooded the clay quarry. The potters, deprived of their raw material, had to abandon the kilns.

 

The workshop was recovered in 1993 and converted into a Museum-Workshop of Basque Pottery to rescue this millenary trade from oblivion.  

 

Visit the collection of more than 300 pieces of Basque pottery divided into different sections according to their use: ceramics for fire, table, food preservation, liquid transport, construction or religious use were some of their functions. Attached to the building, the old kiln is an architectural element from the 18th century that is still in very good condition.

 

In the workshop you can learn the technique of this ancient craft from the potters. You'll see them moulding the clay and then firing the pieces, glazing them and giving them the final finish in the same way as in the olden days.

 

Visit the shop for a practical or decorative gift from Gorbeia.