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Useful Links

Ceramic Heritage Action Zone (HAZ)

A five-year scheme focussing on the Longton and the remaining bottle ovens throughout the city being delivered by Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Historic England with support from Potteries Heritage Society, Urban Wilderness, Staffordshire University, University of Keele and Liverpool John Moores University.

 

All about bottle ovens - the 2000 iconic buildings which once dominated the landscape of The Potteries of Stoke-on-Trent. A treasure trove of bottle oven knowledge.
 
 
Potteries Bottle Oven Day - 29 August every year
 
Since 2018 this date has been an annual celebration of the last firing and all of the the City's remaining bottle ovens. Events are co-ordinated by Stoke-on-Trent's Ceramic Heritage Action Zone, Gladstone Pottery Museum and Potteries Heritage Society. Find out about upcoming and past events on our Potteries Bottle Oven Day page and at the Gladstone Pottery Museum's PotBOD page.
 
 
 
 
A variety of our Club members' bottle oven sites across the city are open to the public (covid restrictions dependant):

 

Moorland Pottery 

Visit the factory shop based at the works on Moorland Road, Burslem. Parking is available in our yard and the factory shop is within easy walking distance from the town centre.

 

Middleport Pottery

The home of world-famous Burleigh and an award-winning visitor destination in Stoke-on-Trent. The site is owned and managed by Re-form Heritage, an independent charity which specialises in the restoration and rejuvenation of heritage buildings at risk of decay or demolition.

 

Moorcroft Heritage Visitor Centre 

The home of William Moorcroft ceramics where the bottle oven takes centre stage gift shop and museum.

 

Dudson Museum 

The Museum is housed in an atmospheric Grade ll listed bottle oven home of the Dudson brand, which continued to produce ceramic tableware until 2019, a unique family business with a proud tradition of quality and a fascinating history.

 

Etruria Industrial Museum

The home of Jesse Shirley’s 1857 Bone and Flint Mill, the only remaining operational Steam Driven Potters' Mill in the world.

 

Gladstone Pottery Museum

Gladstone Pottery Museum in Longton, Stoke-on-Trent, is a restored potbank from the days when coal-burning bottle ovens made the world's finest pottery. There are five magnificent, towering ovens in this unique setting - the multi-award winning, industrial museum of the pottery industry.

 

For more information on bottle ovens, Ernest Albert Sandeman influential book Notes on the Manufacture of Earthenware, first published in 1901 is available online, with useful descriptions of different ovens types in chapters 13, 25 and 27:
Notes On The Manufacture Of Earthenware : Sandeman, Ernest Albert : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive