The Etruria Industrial Museum and Heritage centre is the home of Jesse Shirley’s 1857 Bone and Flint Mill (Etruscan Mill), the only remaining operational Steam Driven Potters' Mill in the world.
The museum, mill and site is maintained and operated by volunteers. At present (2017) the museum is open for steaming weekends and private bookings, but they hope to open more regularly in 2018.
Jesse Shirley’s Flint and Bone Mill was built in 1857, alongside the Trent and Mersey Canal. The site includes a flint kiln, working steam engine and grinding pans that had remained in production until 1972.
The mill was an important supplier to the pottery and agricultural industries from the early 1800s to 2011.
Etruscan Mill - (
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The Former Bone Mill is Grade II* listed. A description of the buildings is as follows;
"Brick with Welsh slate roofs. Complete range of buildings including calcining kiln, bone crushing workshops and engine house.
Calcining kiln to the left, a square section base tapering to cap, adjoining the main workshop range of 2 storeys, with 6 upper windows (one now a door approached up 20th Century steps) with lower windows and door now partly below ground level. Engine house adjoins to the right, with pedimented gables and full hight round arched window.
Inscribed stone in apex reads: "Etruscan Bone Mill 1857 Jesse Shirley". Single storeyed workshop with tiled roof adjoins to the right, and set back behind the engine house, a tall square section chimney.
Inside, all the working equipment survives, restored as a working museum." Source: (
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The visitor centre has a tea room, terrace and toilets, including disabled toilets. There is plenty of room by the canal for a picnic.
Admission charges during public openings
Mill not in steam: Entry only – Adults £3.00 per person OR Guided tour Adults £5.00 per person
Mill in Steam: Entry only – Adults £4.00 per person OR Guided tour – Adults £6.00 per person
Young people 15 and under free when accompanied by a paying adult (
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As well as Jesse Shirley’s Mill there is a working forge, canal warehouse and check office, the summit lock of the Trent and Mersey canal, the only staircase lock in Staffordshire and the site of the first public hospital in what was to become Stoke-on-Trent built in 1803 and called the Dispensary and House of Recovery. The site was later occupied by an early gas works.