Was one of Britain’s very finest potters. He has sometimes been called one of studio pottery’s best-kept secrets as, despite the very high quality of his work, he is little known in Britain outside of Cumbria. He did, however, find considerable success in Japan.

Hughes’s interest in pottery was inspired by Barry Gregson at Lancaster Grammar School. He later said: “I was blessed to find my vocation when I was 13 or 14.” The school considered that an art career was a waste of time and wouldn’t allow him to take a pottery A level and strongly objected to his plans to apply to art college. His parents, however,

were supportive and he managed to take the A level in his own time at the local art school. He then did a foundation year at Cardiff before taking a three-year course at Bath Academy of Art from 1973 to 1976.

Hughes worked in thrown, functional, reduced stoneware and porcelain — despite the fact that his great love was 17th and 18th-century English slipware and his hero was Michael Cardew. Though he employed some slipware techniques, firing at high temperatures (up to 1,300C) meant that his pots looked much closer to the Mingei style of contemporary studio ceramics fostered by Bernard Leach.

He died in an accident in 2006.