I love Stoke on Trent. People look at me strangely when I say it, but I do. It is the heart of “The Potteries” and a pilgrimage site for me.
Stoke on Trent is battered and grubby but there are still remnants of its one time status as the centre of pottery making in the UK. In the middle of a weedy field, you’ll see a bottle kiln and some accompanying tumbled down sheds. On a street littered with rubbish will be an abandoned pottery works that is beautifully decorated with ornamental brickwork, but the windows are boarded up. I find these shadows of Stoke’s pottery manufacturing history wonderfully evocative and heartbreaking.
Spode, Stoke on Trent
I visited the Spode Museum Trust Heritage Centre . Spode was once the largest of the Stoke potteries. It’s been all torn down now except for a few rickety buildings. The Heritage Centre is making a valiant effort to preserve the history of the pottery works but it’s clear they’re terribly underfunded. The volunteers who work there are very knowledgeable about the history of Spode and the technical aspects of making pottery. They also know about the profound cultural and economic shock that hit the community when the potteries closed down.
There are still people around who once worked in the Potteries and they will tell you about it. A volunteer took me up to the “Blue Room” where valuable pieces of Spode ware are displayed. While the rest of the Heritage Centre is quite spare and utilitarian, this room looks like it was plucked from a National Trust mansion. The ceramics are piled on lots of dark wooden sideboards and tables. My kindly guide worked in the potteries when he was a young man. “Ah, those were the good times,” he said, and spoke proudly of his work. Back then, he and his mates had skilled and respected jobs. They supported their families. They had fun. When he got to the part about when the potteries closed down, his eyes filled with tears. He told me “it was hard work saving what we could and too much was lost.”
There is so much love and regret in Stoke on Trent.