Gladstone Pottery Museum facts for kids
The courtyard and bottle kiln
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| Established | 1974 |
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| Location | Longton, Staffordshire, England |
| Type | Industrial museum |
| Public transit access | Longton railway station 10 mins by foot |
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The Gladstone Pottery Museum is a special place where you can see how pottery was made a long time ago. It's like stepping back in time to a real pottery factory! This museum shows how things were done in the North Staffordshire area of England, from the 1700s to the mid-1900s. It's also a very important old building, protected by law.
The museum is found in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. It's even part of a special European trail that highlights important industrial places. Even though it's called Gladstone, the museum actually has buildings from two old factories: Gladstone and Roslyn. Its most important parts are the giant kilns, which are like huge ovens. There are very few of these "bottle ovens" left in Stoke-on-Trent. The ones at the museum are a big part of the few that remain in the whole country.
In 1976, the Gladstone Pottery Museum won the National Heritage Museum of the Year award.
Contents
History of the Pottery
A pottery factory first opened on this site way back in 1787. The Shelley family ran it, making earthenware and decorating plates from other famous potters like Josiah Wedgwood. In 1789, William Ward bought the site. He split it into two factories: the Park Place Works (later called Roslyn) and Wards Pot Bank.
Wards Pot Bank was sold in 1818 to John Hendley Sheridan. In the 1850s, Sheridan rented the factory to Thomas Cooper. Cooper had 41 adults and 26 children working for him. They made fine china and special parian figures.
By 1876, the Wards factory was owned by R. Hobson and Co. They renamed it Gladstone, after a famous British politician named William Ewart Gladstone.
The factory became a museum in 1974. Its buildings were saved from being torn down in 1970. This was about ten years after its unique bottle ovens were last used to fire pottery. In the 1990s, the Stoke-on-Trent City Council took over ownership.
The museum used to be a "working pottery" where they made things. However, making pottery had to be reduced for money reasons. So, it's not as much of a "living" museum as it once was. As of 2014, the Middleport Pottery in Burslem is probably the only working Victorian pottery left in Stoke-on-Trent.
How Tableware Was Made
Making pottery was a long process with many steps.
Mixing and Shaping Clay
First, clay and ground bone were mixed together in a room called the sliphouse. Bowls, plates, and saucers were shaped from this wet clay mixture, called slip. This was done by pressing, jiggering, jolleying, or moulding. The newly shaped, unfired pottery was called "green china." It was left to dry in a greenhouse. At the same time, special clay boxes called saggars were made. These would hold the pottery inside the kiln.
Firing in the Bottle Kiln
The giant bottle oven kiln has an outer hovel (a chimney-like structure). This hovel helps hot air rise. The biscuit kiln was filled with the green pottery inside sealed saggars. Workers called placers carefully stacked them. The kiln doors, called clammins, were then bricked up.
Firing the kiln would begin, using 14 tons of coal for each firing! Fires were lit in the firemouths and fed coal every four hours. Flames shot up inside the kilns, and heat moved between the stacks of saggars. Workers controlled the temperature using dampers at the top. They checked the heat by watching special rings called bullers rings shrink. A kiln would get as hot as 1250 degrees Celsius.
Glazing and Decorating
After the first firing, the "biscuitware" (fired but unglazed pottery) was covered with glaze. Then, it was fired again in bigger glost kilns. Again, items were placed in sealed saggars. Special kiln furniture like stints, saddles, and thimbles kept items separate. After this, the tableware was decorated. This was done using transfers or by painting. Finally, it was placed in a muffle kiln.
The enamel kiln (or muffle kiln) was built differently. It fired at a lower temperature of 700 degrees Celsius. The pots were stacked on 7 or 8 levels of clay bats (shelves). Its door was made of iron lined with bricks.
Once the kiln cooled, the finished pottery was put into baskets. It was then sent to different parts of the country and the British Empire. This was done using the canal network and ports on the River Mersey.
Museum Buildings
The museum is mainly built around the old Roslyn pottery. It has two smaller biscuit ovens and two larger glost ovens. There are also two enamel kilns. A large steam engine is on display, but it is now turned by an electric motor. The two muffle kilns were brought here from other places.
What You Can See
The museum lets visitors explore the huge bottle kilns. It also shows you the main rooms where work happened:
- The engine house
- The slip room (where clay was mixed)
- The saggar making workshop
You can also see how clay was worked. There are hands-on displays where you can try throwing, moulding, and decorating pottery. Information panels explain how colors and gilding (adding gold) were done.
There is a special gallery that tells the story of tiles. It shows how tiles were pressed, glazed, and decorated. A famous artwork called the "Gladstone Vase" by Frederick Alfred Rhead is also on display.
Another gallery shows the history of sanitary ware. This includes old toilets, earth closets, and water closets.
Gladstone in the Media
The Gladstone Pottery Museum has been featured on TV many times:
- Tony Robinson filmed here for a BBC show called 'The Worst Jobs in Britain'.
- Alan Titchmarsh has also visited.
- The Blue Peter crew and other children's TV shows often film here.
- In 1986, parts of the Doctor Who series The Trial of a Time Lord were filmed at the museum.
- In the early 1990s, it was on Noel's House Party.
- It was featured on Living TV's show "Most Haunted".
- In 2015, it appeared in the BBC One show 24 Hours in the Past. Six celebrities worked there as if they were in Victorian times.
- Since 2020, the TV show The Great Pottery Throw Down has been filmed at the museum.
- In 2021, it was used for the Netflix TV series The Irregulars and the movie The Colour Room.
Events and Celebrations
The museum hosts many fun events throughout the year:
- Halloween ghost walks and tours.
- Christmas Carol Concerts and seasonal festivals.
- For children, there are Egg Easter Hunts and Summer Pottery workshops.
See also
- Burleigh Pottery
