At Last! A Saggar Maker's Bottom Knocker!!

Sunday 8th September, 2013 at Stoke-on-Trent.
After breakfast, we sailed the mile and two locks down to Stoke-on-Trent railway station where we moored up, put out the washing and walked to the station to pick up a taxi to go to Longton, a few miles to the east, to visit the Gladstone Pottery Museum. We would have gone by train but there weren't any until mid-afternoon!

The pottery first opened in 1787 and continued in production until 1960. The buildings were saved from demolition in 1970 and it opened as a museum in 1974. It is the most complete surviving example, almost all the other old potteries have been demolished. Unlike Middleport Pottery, where only one bottle kiln survives, Gladstone has all eight of its original bottle kilns.

Their steam engine is preserved and working, although run by compressed air rather than steam.

To our delight, there was a large display devoted to Saggars. Saggars were containers into which the china was packed to protect it from smoke and dirt when in the kiln. The Saggars (weighing 50lbs each!) were carried into the kiln on the workers' heads and stacked one on top of the other. An average kiln would hold about 2,000 Saggars).

Each Saggar lasted only about 40 firings and so a constant supply of new ones was required. That is where the Saggar Makers came in.

The Saggar Maker's Bottom Knocker made the base of the Saggar by flattening a lump of clay in a ring mould with a heavy wooden "Mow" weighing about 35lbs. They were often children or apprentices. The picture below of Saggar Maker's Bottom Knockers was taken about 1910.

Although Gladstone is no longer in production, they do make a small number of pieces for sale in the shop, including an interesting variation on the "Willow Pattern" that includes a bottle kiln and two Spitfires (in memory of R.J. Mitchell who was brought up in Stoke).

They also have demonstrations of various skills. We saw one lady making china flowers and another painting flowers on to pottery, both ladies had been apprenticed in their teens and, except for breaks to bring up families, had been doing the same job all their lives.

We had lunch in the cafe and tried the local staple of oat cakes, made with a variety of stuffings.

In the afternoon, we visited a special exhibition in the museum called:

It celebrates the history of the toilet over the years and "lifts the lid" on the role that potters played in its development. It started with a very malodorous typical Victorian slum backyard complete with a "plank and bucket" toilet and even a pig who ate all the refuse (yeuk!). It covered the story of the WC from Queen Elizabeth I through to the toilet of the future. It also had a fascinating collection of Victorian decorative toilets of every shape, colour and pattern.

"Flushed" with the success of our search for Saggar Maker's Bottom Knockers, we took the short train journey back to Stoke and MM.  We set off towards the south and, as the sun began to set, we arrived at Wedgwood and moored up for the night.
Today: 5 miles, 3 locks and 3.0 hours.
Trip: 380 miles, 297 locks and 311.2 hours