It's been a good while since I posted a report. I've still been out and about where possible, I guess I got out of the habit. This will nestle in with the rest of the larger body of work I've put in with Staffordshire's pottery industry.
This place really reflects the wider clusterfuck that has been Stoke's dealings with it's much celebrated ceramics history, more acutely the fabric of the works and buildings associated with it. Wghen I began looking at the pottery industry I used to firmly believe they really didn't care. As I've got older and a little wiser I kind of understand that the city is faced with some serious issues and perhaps it's not all the council's fault. I used to think " just compulsory purchase it for gods sake" but reading about the council's situation they are constantly on the brink of bankruptcy as it is without buying tumble down sprawling buildings such as this! That said, the sorry saga of Royal Doulton's Nile St Works should be a case study of what not to do with a historic factory site!
Anyway, the Top Bridge Works. An early example of a pottery which is actually very complete, still retaining one of it's bottle ovens and it's chimney. Price and Kensington were a typical firm churning out everyday household ware, most notably teapots. By the end they were making what I can only describe as "tat", such as teapots in such forms as a red phone box, London taxi, Big Ben, etc. You can actually still buy their god awful wares... now made in Indonesia.
Since ceramic manufacture left the site in 2003 it went through the usual rounds of being carved up into units, housing a ceramics sales company, a gym, and a house clearance firm. The latter seem to have taken over much of the site, filling a good chunk of the place with what they couldn't sell to the point it was actually challenging getting around some of the place! All the while the aged fabric of the building decayed, until the point where the gable end of the front building was about to fall into the road. The council stepped in and demolished the building, and from what I've read while on site discovered the true extent of what was going on inside it. It was deemed a health hazard and the owner fined. this seems to have forced the business to scarper so it is now empty. Shortly after the demolition another portion of the works caught fire and now the frontage is a terrible mess of herras fence, tumble down walls and torn brick. I cant really see a future for it if I'm honest. The area it is situated in has had wholesale housing demolition, the pubs stand boarded up and the whole place just has an air of dereliction and faded glory. I really do hope I'm wrong as it's a fantastic collection of buildings, I just fear it might be a bit late to start to do anything with them.
The usual stack of plaster moulds and patterns that you expect to find in any pottery worth it's salt
View over the yard
These are dryers for drying out ware before firing. They looked very old indeed and probably home made
Dryers, note the moulds stacked on top
On the top floor of the building we happened across something interesting. These Victorian posters had been whitewashed over and the damp was fetching the whitewash off the walls revealing the posters!
Slip casting benches. The liquid clay is poured into the moulds (as above) and the excess is poured out into these troughs. They would have had wooden slats to rest the moulds on originally
The bottle oven had some work done on it with Lottery money in the late 90's / early 2000's. It is a fantastic example retaining it's kiln and outer hovel.
Plate "jiggers"
The long structure with the graffiti is the tunnel kiln that replaced the bottle oven after the clean air act
The aftermath of the fire
Charred - but a stack of moulds remain in place. There were such wonders as "London Taxi" and "Smiling pig biscuit barrel" amongst them
Underground storage for clay
Interesting feature to allow maximum space in both upper floor and yard.
Challenging to get decent photos in here with the extreme light and dark .The "Clammins" entrance, just big enough for a man with a sagger on his head to pass through
Iron "bonts" protect the kiln from expansion during firing.
Overview of the sorry state of the place
This place really reflects the wider clusterfuck that has been Stoke's dealings with it's much celebrated ceramics history, more acutely the fabric of the works and buildings associated with it. Wghen I began looking at the pottery industry I used to firmly believe they really didn't care. As I've got older and a little wiser I kind of understand that the city is faced with some serious issues and perhaps it's not all the council's fault. I used to think " just compulsory purchase it for gods sake" but reading about the council's situation they are constantly on the brink of bankruptcy as it is without buying tumble down sprawling buildings such as this! That said, the sorry saga of Royal Doulton's Nile St Works should be a case study of what not to do with a historic factory site!
Anyway, the Top Bridge Works. An early example of a pottery which is actually very complete, still retaining one of it's bottle ovens and it's chimney. Price and Kensington were a typical firm churning out everyday household ware, most notably teapots. By the end they were making what I can only describe as "tat", such as teapots in such forms as a red phone box, London taxi, Big Ben, etc. You can actually still buy their god awful wares... now made in Indonesia.
Since ceramic manufacture left the site in 2003 it went through the usual rounds of being carved up into units, housing a ceramics sales company, a gym, and a house clearance firm. The latter seem to have taken over much of the site, filling a good chunk of the place with what they couldn't sell to the point it was actually challenging getting around some of the place! All the while the aged fabric of the building decayed, until the point where the gable end of the front building was about to fall into the road. The council stepped in and demolished the building, and from what I've read while on site discovered the true extent of what was going on inside it. It was deemed a health hazard and the owner fined. this seems to have forced the business to scarper so it is now empty. Shortly after the demolition another portion of the works caught fire and now the frontage is a terrible mess of herras fence, tumble down walls and torn brick. I cant really see a future for it if I'm honest. The area it is situated in has had wholesale housing demolition, the pubs stand boarded up and the whole place just has an air of dereliction and faded glory. I really do hope I'm wrong as it's a fantastic collection of buildings, I just fear it might be a bit late to start to do anything with them.
The usual stack of plaster moulds and patterns that you expect to find in any pottery worth it's salt
View over the yard
These are dryers for drying out ware before firing. They looked very old indeed and probably home made
Dryers, note the moulds stacked on top
On the top floor of the building we happened across something interesting. These Victorian posters had been whitewashed over and the damp was fetching the whitewash off the walls revealing the posters!
Slip casting benches. The liquid clay is poured into the moulds (as above) and the excess is poured out into these troughs. They would have had wooden slats to rest the moulds on originally
The bottle oven had some work done on it with Lottery money in the late 90's / early 2000's. It is a fantastic example retaining it's kiln and outer hovel.
Plate "jiggers"
The long structure with the graffiti is the tunnel kiln that replaced the bottle oven after the clean air act
The aftermath of the fire
Charred - but a stack of moulds remain in place. There were such wonders as "London Taxi" and "Smiling pig biscuit barrel" amongst them
Underground storage for clay
Interesting feature to allow maximum space in both upper floor and yard.
Challenging to get decent photos in here with the extreme light and dark .The "Clammins" entrance, just big enough for a man with a sagger on his head to pass through
Iron "bonts" protect the kiln from expansion during firing.
Overview of the sorry state of the place
