 The courtyard and bottle kilns | |
  Location within Staffordshire | |
| Established | 1974 |
|---|---|
| Location | Longton, Staffordshire,England |
| Coordinates | 52°59′12″N2°07′53″W / 52.98667°N 2.131488°W /52.98667; -2.131488 |
| Type | Industrial museum |
| Public transit access | Longton railway station 10 mins by foot |
| Website | http://www.stokemuseums.org.uk/visit/gpm/ |
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TheGladstone Pottery Museum is a working museum of a medium-sized coal-firedpottery, typical of those once common in the NorthStaffordshire area of England from the time of theIndustrial Revolution in the 18th century to the mid 20th century. It is a grade II*listed building.[1]
The museum is located inLongton,Stoke-on-Trent,Staffordshire.It is also included in one of the regional routes of theEuropean Route of Industrial Heritage.[2]Despite the name of the museum, it is a complex of buildings from two works, the Gladstone and the Roslyn.[3] The protected features include the kilns. As there are fewer than 50 survivingbottle ovens in Stoke-on-Trent (and only a scattering elsewhere in the UK), the museum's kilns along with others in the Longtonconservation area represent a significant proportion of the national stock of the structures.[4][5]
In 1976, the Gladstone Pottery Museum was awarded National HeritageMuseum of the Year.[6]
A pottery factory first opened on the site in 1787. It was run by the Shelley family who producedearthenware and decorated plates and dishes produced byJosiah Wedgwood inEtruria. The site was purchased in 1789 by William Ward who split it into two pot banks: the Park Place Works subsequently named the Roslyn works, and the Wards Pot Bank which was sold to John Hendley Sheridan in 1818. In the 1850s Sheridan had rented out the site to Thomas Cooper who employed 41 adults and 26 children to produce china andparian figures.
By 1876 the Wards site had passed into the hands of R. Hobson and Co. and had been renamed Gladstone, after the politicianWilliam Ewart Gladstone.[7]
The factory opened as a museum in 1974, the buildings having been saved from demolition in 1970 when the pottery closed (some ten years after itsbottle ovens were last fired). In the 1990s ownership passed toStoke-on-Trent City Council.
The museum has shown its commitment toindustrial heritage by functioning as a working pottery. However, production has had to be curtailed for financial reasons and the museum is therefore less of a "living" museum than it was.[8] As at 2014 theMiddleport Pottery in Burslem, which is used for commercial production, is arguably the only working Victorian pottery in the city of Stoke-on-Trent.[9]
The clay and ground bone were mixed in thesliphouse. Bowls, plates and saucers werepressed,jiggered andjolleyed ormoulded from theslip. The green (un-fired) china was left to dry in thegreenhouse. At the same time thesaggars that would hold them in the kiln were made.
Thebottle oven kiln is protected by an outerhovel, which helps to create an updraught. Thebiscuit kiln was filled with clay sealed saggars of green (un-fired) flatwares (bedded in flint) byplacers. The doors (clammins) were bricked up and the firing began. Each firing took 14 tons of coal. Fires were lit in thefiremouths andbaited every four hours, flames rose up inside the kilns, heat passed between thebungs of saggars. They controlled the temperature of the firing usingdampers in the crown. The temperature was gauged by watching the contraction of bullers rings (apyrometric device placed in the kiln). A kiln would be fired to 1250C.[10]
The biscuitwares are glazed. They fired again in the biggerglost kilns- again they are placed in sealed saggars, items separated bykiln furniture such asstints,saddles andthimbles. The table-ware would then be decorated by transfers or by painting and placed in the muffle kiln.[10]
Theenamel kiln (or muffle kiln) is of different construction- it fired at 700C.The pots were stacked on 7 or 8 levels of claybats (shelves). The door was iron lined with brick.[10]
When the kiln cooled the product was transported in basket and exported to different parts of the country and empire using thecanal network and the ports on theRiver Mersey.[10]
The museum is centred on the Roslyn pottery. It contains two biscuit ovens and two larger glost ovens. In addition are two enamel kilns. A tandemcompound steam engine by Marshall & Sons, of Gainsborough, Lincolnshire is in place but it is turned by an electric motor. The two muffle kilns came from elsewhere.
The museum allows the visitor to explore the bottle kilns and exhibits the principal ancillary rooms: the engine house, the slip room, saggar making workshop. It shows aspects of working with clay- including hands on displays of throwing, moulding and decorating. Colour and gilding is presented as interpretive panels.
There is a gallery explaining the history of the tile: how it was pressed glazed and decorated. In one tableau the "Gladstone Vase" byFrederick Alfred Rhead is displayed.[a]
There is also a gallery charting the history ofsanitary ware, privies,earth closets andwater closets.
The museum has a display of ceramics from the shipwreck of theJosephine Willis which sank in the 1850.[13][14]
Gladstone has seen its share of celebrity interest, fromTony Robinson filming for a BBC documentary 'The Worst Jobs in Britain' and fromAlan Titchmarsh. It also has regular visits from theBlue Peter crew, and numerous children's TV programmes. In 1986, parts 13 and 14 of theDoctor Who serialThe Trial of a Time Lord were shot at the museum.[15] In the early 1990s it was featured onNoel's House Party with a live 'gunging' outside of the bottle kilns.
Gladstone pottery museum was featured on Living TV's popular series, "Most Haunted".[citation needed]
The museum featured in the third episode of the BBC One programme24 Hours in the Past featuring six celebrities working in the Victorian era. The episode aired on 12 May 2015.[16][17]
The Great Pottery Throw Down has been filmed on location there since 2020, having moved fromMiddleport Pottery.
In 2021, it was used as a regular location for both Netflix TV SeriesThe Irregulars based on the characters from the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes novels andThe Colour Room about the local Pottery designerClarice Cliff.
The museum holds annual events from Halloween ghosts walks and tours, to Christmas Carol Concerts and seasonal festivals. It also caters for children with Egg Easter Hunts and Summer Pottery workshops.
It is on loan from the Gladstone family.[12]"In the centre is a symbolic figure of Liberty seated on a dais, and holding in one hand the scales of justice and in the other a broken chain. On the right is Homer and on the left Dante offering a poet’s tribute. Next to the central figure on the left are figures of a vestal in a pleading attitude and a historian recording the deeds done in the name of freedom. On the back of the vase in the centre is a figure of St. George, supported on one side by William Wallace and on the other by Brian Boru. There are figures of Ireland with bowed heads and Poland with mournful look and hair unbound. There are also figures of saucy children and a maiden bringing offerings of flowers. The figures are executed in white on a blackish or bottle green ground, and the general ground of the vase is of heliotrope tint, with quiet ornamentation".
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52°59′12″N2°07′54″W / 52.9866°N 2.1317°W /52.9866; -2.1317
