1770 Spode Factory - Stoke, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
N 53° 00.278 W 002° 11.007
30U E 554792 N 5873097
The date 1770 can be seen on the side wall of the Spode Factory buildings, Kingsway in Stoke.
Waymark Code: WMV7PD
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/10/2017
Views: 2
The buildings are opposite the large Kingsway car park in Stoke. The Spode Rose Garden runs along in front of the factory building.
The town of Stoke was built around Spode. Many of its streets (which still survive in part) were built by Josiah II and the early Copelands to house their workers. The Spode site is not just of National historical importance, but the centrepiece of Stoke Town’s heritage.
Josiah Spode l acquired the site in what is now Church Street, Stoke in 1776 and Spode wares were made there continuously until 2008.
In the 19th Century it was one of the two largest potteries in Staffordshire, boasting some 22 bottle ovens and employing around a thousand people. Its story is in some ways typical of many factories in the Potteries – wealthy owners, successive generations of families working there, heavy pollution, child labour, industrial diseases, low life expectancy. Paradoxically, some of the most beautiful ceramic objects ever produced were made there, and were recognised as such throughout the world.
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The Spode Museum Trust Heritage Centre opened in 2012 in one of the period buildings on the Spode site in Stoke. It was doubled in size in 2016 and is scheduled to expand further in 2017, with improved visitor facilities, new displays and activities and an enlarged museum shop. (
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