Stoke is somewhere I only ever drive through on the A50 while trying to get somewhere else. Other than a couple of visits to Chatterley Whitfield Colliery on the outskirts, I’ve never had cause to stop and explore.
But as I was heading down to the East Midlands and had some time to spare, I decided to spend a couple of hours exploring the industrial landscape. The city was once known for not only its steelworks but also ‘pits and pots’ – coal and ceramics.
The steelworks closed in the late 90’s and the only remnants of the coal industry are the aforementioned Chatterley Whitfield and Apedale drift mine both of which I’ve already visited at least once so I wanted to see what was left of the ceramics industry, specifically the bottle kilns. While they’re not unique to Stoke, they are a structure that is synonymous with the area. Online research suggested that there was 47 left which is quite a lot until you consider that at its peak there were over 4000, with around 2000 left in the 1950’s. That’s quite a reduction!
While I don’t intend to do a typology of the remaining kilns – many are inaccessible / difficult to photograph or even built into other structures – I thought it would be interesting to see a few and how they fit into their surroundings.
This one is at the Price and Kensington teapot works at the side of the Trent and Mersey canal in Longport. The pottery appears to be largely derelict but fundamentally intact, and the kiln is easily viewable from the towpath on the opposite side as well as the footpath outside (which is where the above photograph was taken from). There were once two kilns here, the other one was demolished in the 1970’s according to this website. The works shut down in 2002.
The view from the other side of the canal is less interesting and while the above photograph is composed and processed to emphasise the textures and shapes of the kiln and chimney, the ones below are more record shots of what is there. It wasn’t really possible to get a more contextual shots of the pottery as it’s not a tall building and the surrounding area is uninteresting.
Mechanical Landscapes 
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