Stoke-on-Trent, the capital of ceramics

Stoke-on-Trent is the world capital of ceramics. In Staffordshire, halfway between Birmingham and Manchester, it has about 260,000 inhabitants and is an unusual city: it has no real centre, because it was formed in 1910 by the merger of six separate towns, Tunstall, Burslem, Hanley, Stoke, Fenton and Longton, each with its own town hall, market and church. For more than two centuries the porcelain and earthenware that set the tables of half the world were made here, under names such as Wedgwood, Spode, Minton, Royal Doulton and Moorcroft. That is why the area is known simply as The Potteries. The skyline was once dominated by thousands of bottle ovens, a few dozen of which survive as monuments.

Trains from London Euston take about an hour and a half, and Manchester Airport is less than an hour away. Alton Towers theme park and Trentham Gardens are close by, and the city is a good base for the Peak District.

A city born from clay

The red clay and coal underground explain everything. As early as the 17th century the small potters of Burslem fired earthenware with coal dug from the fields. In the 18th century came the revolution: Josiah Wedgwood, born in Burslem in 1730 into a family of potters, turned production into a modern industry, with division of labour, quality control, illustrated catalogues and even mail-order sales. In 1769 he opened a new factory he called Etruria, in tribute to the Etruscans, because he drew inspiration from the ancient vases discovered in Italy and fashionable among English Grand Tour collectors. His most famous product is jasperware, the matt blue stoneware with white classical figures in relief.

Wedgwood was also a leading promoter of the Trent and Mersey Canal, designed by engineer James Brindley and completed in 1777, which brought white clay from Cornwall and carried finished ware to the ports without breaking it on rutted roads. Dozens of other manufacturers grew up around him: Josiah Spode perfected the formula for bone china, made with bone ash, which became the symbol of English ceramics; Minton, Doulton and others worked for royal households and hotels around the world.

In the 19th century the six towns grew until they touched, wrapped in kiln smoke. In 1910 they merged into a single borough, which became a city in 1925. The novelist Arnold Bennett, born in Hanley, described this world in his novels of the "Five Towns", deliberately leaving out one, Fenton, because "five" sounded better. Since the 1970s foreign competition and economic crisis have closed most factories, but ceramics remain the city's soul, with dozens of firms still active, many in luxury or craft production.

The six towns, one by one

To find your way around Stoke you need to know its six parts, strung from north to south along the valley of the River Trent and the canal.

• Tunstall, the northernmost, has a handsome Victorian square and a town park.
• Burslem, the "Mother Town", is the cradle of pottery and of Wedgwood, with Middleport Pottery, historic pubs and the quarter where decorations are still printed.
• Hanley is today the main centre, with the shops, the theatre, the bus station, the ceramics museum and the nightlife.
• Stoke, which gives the city its name, has the railway station, the civic centre, the university and the old Spode works.
• Fenton, the smallest, is the one Arnold Bennett left out of his novels.
• Longton, in the south, has the largest number of bottle ovens and the Gladstone Pottery Museum.

If you are short of time, focus on Hanley, Burslem and Longton, but wandering between the six towns is the best way to understand how a city could be born almost by accident, from many potters' villages that grew until they met.

How a cup is made

Visiting the factories you discover how much work goes into a simple cup. Clay mixed with water is shaped on the wheel or, more often, poured as liquid slip into plaster moulds that absorb the water. The piece, dried and finished by hand, is fired a first time, becoming "biscuit". Then glaze is applied, the piece is decorated by hand or with transfers and fired again. In the past the pieces were packed into large fireclay containers, saggars, stacked to the top of the bottle ovens by workers who carried dozens of kilos at a time on their heads. Firing took days, and the black smoke from the ovens darkened the skies of the Potteries. Working conditions were hard: dust caused lung disease, lead in the glazes poisoned workers, and children were employed in the factories until the late 19th century. The museums tell this side of the story too, alongside the beauty of the finished pieces, and many local families still have grandparents or great-grandparents who worked on the potbanks.

What to see in Stoke-on-Trent

World of Wedgwood

At Barlaston, south of the city, the World of Wedgwood brings together the working factory, a museum and a visitor centre. The Wedgwood Museum displays thousands of pieces, from the first neoclassical vases to items linked to the famous dinner service ordered by Empress Catherine the Great, decorated with hundreds of views of England, up to 20th-century designs. You can watch craftspeople at work, try throwing clay on the wheel and take tea in the tea room, naturally in Wedgwood china.

Gladstone Pottery Museum

In Longton, the Gladstone Pottery Museum is the only Victorian pottery preserved intact with its bottle ovens, cobbled yard, workshops and chimneys. You can go inside the ovens, discover how people worked amid heat and dust, and watch demonstrations of decorating and making. A curious section tells the story of sanitary ware, because ceramic washbasins and toilets were born here too.

Middleport Pottery

In Burslem, on the canal bank, Middleport Pottery is an 1888 factory still at work, producing Burleigh ware with the traditional transfer-printing technique. Restored with the support of the foundation of King Charles, then Prince of Wales, it can be visited with guides who show each stage of production. It is also the set of a popular British TV programme about pottery. In nearby Burslem, the "Mother Town" of the Potteries, you will find the old town hall with its golden angel on the dome and several historic works.

Potteries Museum & Art Gallery

In Hanley, the city's main shopping centre, the free Potteries Museum & Art Gallery holds one of the world's largest collections of Staffordshire ceramics. But it also attracts visitors for two other reasons: it displays part of the Staffordshire Hoard, the largest Anglo-Saxon gold and silver treasure ever found, discovered in 2009 in a field by a metal-detecting enthusiast, and an original Spitfire fighter, in tribute to Reginald Mitchell, the aircraft's designer, who grew up in the area.

Spode, Emma Bridgewater and other factories

In Stoke, the historic Spode works now hosts creative spaces and exhibitions. In Hanley, the Emma Bridgewater factory, famous for its polka-dot mugs and cheerful designs, offers tours and decorating workshops. Many manufacturers have factory shops selling seconds at bargain prices: for many visitors this is one of the reasons for the trip. Every two years, in autumn, the city hosts the British Ceramics Biennial, the country's main festival of contemporary ceramics.

The canal and Etruria Industrial Museum

Along the Trent and Mersey Canal you can walk or cycle past old factories, kilns and locks. At the junction of two canals, the Etruria Industrial Museum preserves a 19th-century steam mill that ground bone and flint for the pottery industry, still run on certain days.

Around Stoke-on-Trent

• Trentham Estate, just south of the city: a large park with Italian gardens laid out by Charles Barry, architect of the Palace of Westminster, a lake, woods and Monkey Forest, where more than a hundred Barbary macaques live in semi-freedom.
• Alton Towers, some thirty kilometres east: the UK's best-known theme park, set in the grounds of a ruined Gothic Revival mansion.
• The Peak District, with its stone villages, hills and stately homes, begins less than half an hour's drive away.
• Biddulph Grange Garden, a Victorian garden with corners inspired by China and Egypt.
• Little Moreton Hall, just over the Cheshire border: a black-and-white Tudor timber-framed house, so crooked and bent by the weight of centuries that it looks like something out of a fairytale.
• Rudyard Lake, near the market town of Leek: a Victorian reservoir where the parents of writer Rudyard Kipling met, naming him after the place.

Football, music and food

Stoke City, founded in 1863, is considered the second-oldest professional club in the world after Notts County, and counted among its players Stanley Matthews, born in Hanley in 1915, the first footballer to win the Ballon d'Or, in 1956. Port Vale is the city's other club, with its ground in Burslem. Stoke has also produced two very different musicians: Lemmy, founder of Motörhead, born in Burslem, and pop singer Robbie Williams, who grew up in the city and often speaks of it fondly.

At the table, the local speciality is the Staffordshire oatcake, a thin, soft oatmeal pancake filled with cheese, bacon, sausage or eggs: it is bought hot from small shops, some of which sell nothing else, and half the city eats it for breakfast. Another typical dish is lobby, a meat and vegetable stew. Oatcake shops open at dawn and often close by early afternoon, so go in the morning and ask for your favourite filling.

Living in Stoke-on-Trent

Stoke-on-Trent has some of the cheapest housing in England and a central location, an hour from Manchester and Birmingham and an hour and a half from London. After the closure of the mines and many factories, the economy has diversified into logistics, services, healthcare and online gambling: one of the world's largest sports betting companies was founded and is still based here. Staffordshire University and Keele University, in neighbouring Newcastle-under-Lyme, bring students and research. The city also has poor areas and declining neighbourhoods, and its polycentric structure, with six small centres instead of one large one, makes commercial regeneration difficult.

Getting there and getting around

• By train: Avanti West Coast trains from London Euston take about an hour and twenty-five minutes; Manchester is about 40 minutes away, Birmingham under an hour. Stoke station is in the town of Stoke, a few minutes by bus from Hanley.
• By air: Manchester Airport is under an hour away by train; Birmingham Airport is about an hour away.
• In the city: the six towns are linked by frequent buses; a car is handy for visiting the factories and museums in a day, but everything can be reached by public transport.

For travel around the rest of the country see trains and transport, and for other cities British cities.

Tips for your visit

• How long: one or two days for the pottery factories and museums; another day for Trentham or Alton Towers.
• When to go: in autumn in British Ceramics Biennial years; in spring and summer for the gardens of Trentham and Biddulph.
• What to buy: seconds in the factory shops, often at a fraction of the normal price.
• What to eat: a hot oatcake with cheese and bacon, the classic Potteries breakfast.

Stoke-on-Trent on the map

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