I first visited the hulking remnants of J.H. Weatherby's Falcon Works way back in 2015, and we were in the area during a frustrating day of exploring so decided to swing by and have a look. Access is currently as easy as it's ever going to get, to be honest I was rather shocked, but there we go. There doesn't seem to have been a post on here since 2021 either so this is probably a good update on it's current perilous condition.
A little snippet of history - It's been done a bazillion times before so for anyone who's been living under a rock the potted history is as follows - the company was founded in the Tunstall area of Stoke in 1891, and in 1892 it moved to this location in Hanley. In 1892 the works had 4 kilns and one in the process of being built, by 1900 there were 8 kilns and in 1906 a large entrance range was built to the works with 3 stories and 23 bays. From 1925 to 1961 there were 5 bottle kilns, these were replace by electric kilns following the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968. One of the coal fired kilns was retained, having being last fired in 1965, and in 1989 this became a listed building. It originally manufactured domestic wares such as basins, before moving into tableware and giftware, and moving into manufacturing hotelware which ultimately contributed to the company's closure, as there was intense competition from other manufacturers in this sector. In April 2000 it was announced that the company would be wound up, at it's height it had 200 employees but at the point of closure had only 10. The factory has been derelict ever since, part of the roof at the end of the building collapsed at some point and in 2012 the bottle kiln collapsed due to lack of maintenance.
Since my visit in 2015, more of the upper floor areas facing the roadside have collapsed, which has resulted in the road out front being fenced off (badly) so cars can't park there and be potentially hit by falling masonry. The entire frontage on the left hand side is now bowing alarmingly and so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the whole lot came crashing down at some point in the near future. I guess that's kind of what the owners want, a case of demolition by neglect, the bottle kiln which would have been the only saveable part collapsed 12 years ago now and more of the interior has been lost to fires and decay. The intervening nine years since my last visit haven't been kind to the inside either, with every area of wooden flooring now either collapsed, in the process of collapsing, or too sketchy to risk walking across. Luckily a fair amount of the floors in there are concrete and you can still see a good portion of it, although sadly the two upstairs rooms filled with piles of un-glazed pottery are no longer accessible via any safe route, which is a shame.
Despite how totally ruined it is, it's still got some remarkably photogenic parts, and I'd much rather wander around something like this than some minty fresh place with zero decay.
Thanks for looking
A little snippet of history - It's been done a bazillion times before so for anyone who's been living under a rock the potted history is as follows - the company was founded in the Tunstall area of Stoke in 1891, and in 1892 it moved to this location in Hanley. In 1892 the works had 4 kilns and one in the process of being built, by 1900 there were 8 kilns and in 1906 a large entrance range was built to the works with 3 stories and 23 bays. From 1925 to 1961 there were 5 bottle kilns, these were replace by electric kilns following the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968. One of the coal fired kilns was retained, having being last fired in 1965, and in 1989 this became a listed building. It originally manufactured domestic wares such as basins, before moving into tableware and giftware, and moving into manufacturing hotelware which ultimately contributed to the company's closure, as there was intense competition from other manufacturers in this sector. In April 2000 it was announced that the company would be wound up, at it's height it had 200 employees but at the point of closure had only 10. The factory has been derelict ever since, part of the roof at the end of the building collapsed at some point and in 2012 the bottle kiln collapsed due to lack of maintenance.
Since my visit in 2015, more of the upper floor areas facing the roadside have collapsed, which has resulted in the road out front being fenced off (badly) so cars can't park there and be potentially hit by falling masonry. The entire frontage on the left hand side is now bowing alarmingly and so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the whole lot came crashing down at some point in the near future. I guess that's kind of what the owners want, a case of demolition by neglect, the bottle kiln which would have been the only saveable part collapsed 12 years ago now and more of the interior has been lost to fires and decay. The intervening nine years since my last visit haven't been kind to the inside either, with every area of wooden flooring now either collapsed, in the process of collapsing, or too sketchy to risk walking across. Luckily a fair amount of the floors in there are concrete and you can still see a good portion of it, although sadly the two upstairs rooms filled with piles of un-glazed pottery are no longer accessible via any safe route, which is a shame.
Despite how totally ruined it is, it's still got some remarkably photogenic parts, and I'd much rather wander around something like this than some minty fresh place with zero decay.
Thanks for looking
