LAST - remaining operational Steam Driven Potters' Mill in the world - Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.
N 53° 01.154 W 002° 11.520
30U E 554200 N 5874715
The last remaining operational Steam Driven Potters' Mill is located at the Etruria Industrial Museum and Heritage Centre on Lower Bedford Street, Etruria at the junction of the Trent & Mersey and Caldon Canals.
Waymark Code: WMWC8V
Location: West Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/12/2017
Views: 1
The Etruria Industrial Museum is the home of Jesse Shirley’s Bone and Flint Mill (Etruscan Mills) which was an important supplier to the pottery and agricultural industries from the early 1800s to 2011.
The Etruscan Mill was built in 1857 alongside the Trent and Mersey Canal. The Mill's purpose was to grind materials for the agricultural and pottery industries, such as cattle bone and flint. Bone meal was used by farmers as a fertiliser. Ground, burnt bone is added to Cornish stone and china clay at the pottery factory to make bone china.
The Mill only ceased production in 1972 with the process and machinery virtually unchanged. (
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The museum, mill and site is maintained and operated by volunteers. At present (2017) the museum is open for steaming weekends (when the 1903 boiler is fired, and the 1820s 'Princess' beam engine powers the historic machinery) educational talks and private bookings, but they hope to open more regularly in 2018.
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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In 1975 the Mill was scheduled as an Ancient Monument.
A detailed description of the mill and the processes carried out there can be found at the following link. (
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