Caithness Glass
from the Glass
Encyclopedia

Caithness is the most northerly and remote county in Scotland. Wick, on the North East coast, was the original home of Caithness Glass, which started as a small glassworks in 1961 making vases and bowls for the tourist trade. Today the company has major glass-making and visitor operations in Perth, Oban, Wick, and Kings Lynn, and they are part of the Royal Doulton group of companies.

Two years after the company was formed, Paul Ysart - already a world renowned paperweight maker, was recruited as training officer to teach local people how to make glass. He was very secretive about his paperweight techniques, and taught them to a few selected people. The company at that time did not make paperweights, and Paul and his apprentices Peter Holmes and Willie Manson, made them after work and at the weekends.

In 1968 the late Colin Terris joined the company with the responsibility of setting up an engraving and design studio. He was initiated into the mysteries of paperweight making by Paul, and soon developed his own ideas for completely different designs. In 1969 he designed the "Planets" set of four abstract paperweights, which happily coincided with the first landing on the moon. The limited edition of 500 sets were soon sold out, and the following year Colin designed and successfully marketed three more paperweight designs.

Colin Terris and Caithness Glass developed the concept of production lines for abstract paperweights. At the time, abstract paperweights were being made in Scandinavia and some US studios. But they were one-off creations of colors and bubbles. Colin required that each design had to be reproduced over and over again - 500 times in the case of his Planets set, for example. This innovation made a major contribution to the success of Caithness Glass.

Caithness grew into a major operation making paperweights, jewelry, clocks, vases, bowls, scent bottles, and many other items in high quality crystal and coloured glass. In their heyday, the 1990s, they had two huge visitor centres where glass-making could be observed, displays admired and treasured glass items purchased. Their paperweights are recognised world-wide as collectors' items. But unfortunately after a series of mergers and takeovers Caithness Glass had been reduced by 2008 to a small team with just five staff (all glassworkers) renting a portion of the Crieff Visitor Centre.