Potteries in Stoke on Trent

On Thursday, we took an all day trip to Stoke on Trent to visit some of the famous potteries.

			A view from the back of the bus
First stop was Moorcroft
			One of the bottle kilns, around which the gift shop and gallery are built
Some information on the company (readable in the original resolution)
			A series of photographs from the gallery
			Inside the bottle kiln, which has been set up to show some of the equipment and how the kiln was used. This shows the saggars, which were stacked to unbelievable heights, and the ladders used by the stackers.
The top of the kiln (looking up from the floor)
			Inside view of one of the fire boxes (the kilns were fired with wood or coal, generating tremendous amounts of smoke and soot, which gave Stoke on Trent and the surrounding area a very bad reputation for dirty air and soot covering everything)
An outside view of one of the stoking ports
			Josiah Wedgwood
Garden and large teacup outside the Wedgwood factory. We were unable to take pictures inside the factory. The tour is self guided, and quite impressive, especially the 3.5M British Pounds of robotic equipment performing tasks such as jiggering, trimming seam lines, forming feet on pots, and attaching cup handles. In spite of all these advances, some tasks still require hand work, including fettling cup handles (one person takes the handles out of the molds, fettles them, then places them in a tray to be passed along to the robot), overglaze decoration, and sprig attachment.
			Another of the garden
The Wedgwood factory
			Another of the factory buildings
The gift shop at Spode (Faye and Musette exiting). Once again, we were unable to take pictures in the factory, and in this case, didn't get a factory tour. The following are pictures around the factory, which covers several blocks.
			Dinner at Caesar's Italian Restaurant in York

Next page of York Regional photo album.