Royal Worcester has been a passion of mine for more than 30 years.

In fact, it was admiration for Royal Worcester which first brought me into antiques.

The only mid-18th century porcelain manufacturer still in existence was to become the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company.

Founded in 1751 by a group of 15 men, including Dr John Wall, the company was almost immediately producing porcelain wares of the very highest quality.

Although it was owned and run by many different families and companies over the next 300 years, Worcester remained one of the most sophisticated manufacturers in terms of both their designs and the technology they used.

Their style was neo-classical, very defined lines (copying the shapes of silver ware) with delicate gilding and distinctive use of colours - puce green, salmon pink and navy were all typical Worcester colours.

They also jumped on the "blue and white" bandwagon and produced many of those dual-coloured wares which were so popular well into the 20th century.

Early (pre-1755) Worcester has a distinctive green tinge caused by the soapstone in the porcelain.

Because of the soapstone, Worcester porcelain was also able to cope with boiling water.

As a result, many tea and coffee wares were made by Worcester and their reputation was built on the success of these tea sets.

A single cup and saucer from this era may well be worth hundreds of pounds.

This early Worcester also has pegging marks around the inside of the foot rim.

Excess glaze was scraped away with a wooden peg which left a distinctive mark.

Much Worcester has fine and detailed, almost photographic decoration.

Since the founding of the company, Worcester has been a pioneer of new techniques, developing first over-glaze, transfer printing (that is, transfers which went over the porcelain's glaze).

They also improved under-glaze techniques when they began to use them in the 1760s.

When Thomas Flight took over the Midlands pottery in 1783, the soft paste porcelain was abandoned in favour of a hard paste variety - the result was a brilliantly hard and smoother porcelain.

This new porcelain was very suitable for modelling, but early figurative pieces are rare and it was not really until the 19th century that Worcester became famed for figures.

Although the new classic and restrained style largely prevailed, Worcester became comparatively extravagant around the beginning of he 19th century and a much wider variety of colours were used.

In 1852, Worcester was brought out by their local chief rival, Chamberlain and Co.

Nonetheless, the factory continued to flourish and Robert Chamberlain, (a former decorator at Worcester) continued the legacy of innovation which had prevailed.

He developed, and almost bankrupted the company in doing so, a super hard porcelain.

Known as "Regent China", this fine, hard and most translucent of porcelains was used almost exclusively for dinner

services.

The final stage of Worcester's ownership came in 1862 when the Worcester Royal Porcelain Company was formed.

Known as Royal Worcester, this is the company which prevails today.

They continued to produce high quality porcelain with beautiful decorations.

Well into this century, artists like the Stinton family were maintaining Worcester's position as masters - such hand painted porcelain is proving very popular today and is certainly an investment for the future.

l Collectables is compiled by experts at GB Antiques Centre, Lancaster Leisure Park.

The centre is open daily from 10am-5pm.