ONLY - complete Victorian Pottery factory - Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
N 52° 59.214 W 002° 07.930
30U E 558257 N 5871165
The former Gladstone China Works is now preserved as the only complete Victorian Pottery factory in the country.
Waymark Code: WMVABV
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/23/2017
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Stoke-on-Trent is world famous for its pottery and no visit to the city would be complete without experiencing this unique Museum. The venue has original workshops, the cobbled yard and huge bottle kilns, 'Flushed with Pride' toilet exhibit, Tile Gallery and 1890's Doctor's House and demonstrations of traditional skills.
Discover how bone china tableware was made in the original workshops and giant bottle kilns of the former Gladstone China Works, now preserved as the last complete Victorian Pottery factory in the country. Gladstone was not a famous pottery, however it was typical of hundreds of similar factories in the area making everyday ceramic items for the mass market.' Source: (
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This is the only complete Victorian pottery factory in the country and it has been beautifully preserved to be a living legacy on this area’s amazing creative heritage. You can discover how bone china tableware was made in the original workshops and glimpse the giant bottle kilns of the former Gladstone China Works, which opened its doors in 1780 and fired its ovens for the last time in 1960. Source: (
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The Gladstone Pottery Museum is a working museum of a medium-sized coal-fired pottery, typical of those once common in the North Staffordshire area of England from the time of the industrial revolution in the 18th century to the mid 20th century. It is a grade II listed building.
History
A pottery factory first opened on the site in 1787. It was run by the Shelley family who produced earthenware and decorated plates and dishes produced by Josiah Wedgwood in Etruria. The site was purchased in 1789 by William Ward who split it into two pot banks: the Park Place Works subsequently named the Roslyn works, and the Wards Pot Bank which was sold to John Hendley Sheridan in 1818.In the 1850s Sheridan had rented out the site to Thomas Cooper who employed 41 adults and 26 children to produce china and parian figures.
By 1876 the Wards site had passed into the hands of R Hobson and Co and had been renamed Gladstone, after the politician William Ewart Gladstone.
The factory opened as a museum in 1974, the buildings having been saved from demolition in 1970 when the pottery closed (some ten years after its bottle ovens were last fired). In the 1990s ownership passed to Stoke-on-Trent City Council. The museum has shown its commitment to industrial heritage by functioning as a working pottery. However, production has had to be curtailed for financial reasons and the museum is therefore less of a "living" museum than it was."
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