Surprises at the Museum!

Wednesday 28th August at Longport, Stoke-on-Trent. 

A rather cloudy day, but dry. We decided not to move MM, but to leave her moored up by the lake and walk in to the city. It was further than we thought, about three miles each way in the end.

The walk along the towpath was interesting, but not what we had expected. This area is famous for being the centre of the development of the pottery and china making industries as it had plentiful supplies of good quality clay and coal for the ovens. The few remaining relics of the industry make a sorry sight of dereliction and decay.

There are still a few bottle kilns in evidence, but the weeds growing out of the brickwork indicate that they have been kept but not maintained.

One small sign of hope was the Middleport Potteries, which is still operating as a "Victorian" pottery and is being extensively renovated. We are booked to go on the factory tour on Monday.

The canal used to run for more than a mile through the middle of the huge Shelton Bar steel works, but since this closed in 2000, all sign of it has been obliterated. On the west side of the canal it is just a huge flat depressing wasteland. On the east side of the canal, the site has been turned into a park and commercial developments, at the centre of which is Josiah Wedgwood's house, that had originally been surrounded by the steelworks but is now preserved as part of a Best Western Hotel.

We turned off the towpath at bridge 117, which used to be part of a rail "Loop Line" that used to link the six towns that make up Stoke-on-Trent. M thought that we were heading for the Potteries Museum in the Centre of the City - which we were - but we just happened to pass the only Costa in Stoke, so stopped for refreshment. How convenient!

Sadly the centre of the City was a mix of old buildings, many still derelict, shiny souless new developments and large tracts of wasteland, cut through with big, busy roads. The comparison with Birmingham, which has effected a rejuvenation of some charm, was inevitable.

However, the Pottery Museum was a joy and, to our delight, we discovered that the "Staffordshire Hoard" was on display in an exhibition that ends on Sunday. Great timing!

The Hoard was found in 2009 and consists of over 3,500 pieces mainly of gold but many pieces inlaid with garnet. All the pieces were beautifully and intricately decorated and mainly military in nature but there were no blades found with the dagger, seax or sword decorations, just the decorative parts. In terms of "value" in Saxon times, the experts say that is strange because the blades were as much valued as the decoration. Perhaps "scrap" for re-cycling carried by an artisan? We shall probably never know, but it has certainly "illuminated" the Dark Ages just a little bit.

Another surprise in the Museum was a second World War Spitfire being extensively restored. It seems that R.J. Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire, was born and educated in Stoke-on-Trent and was apprenticed here before moving to Supermarines in Southampton.

M was also very please to see a statue of Gordon Banks, one of her heroes, in the lobby of the Museum.  He is holding aloft the World Cup.

After a cup of tea in the Museum Cafe, we made our way back towards the canal, walking back on the east side, and found again the contrast of rows of derelict terraced houses, next to other rows that had been refurbished very nicely.

Finally we arrived back at MM for a quiet evening.

Today: No movement and just 3.4 hours for power.