The Factory Shop

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Introduction
China is the gift given on a 20th Anniversary. The shadowy view is of a bottle kiln - a once familiar sight in The Potteries - and now preserved at The Gladstone Museum. Named after the Prime Minister who visited in 1863, it is close to Hazle’s Mould Maker. The shop sells the area’s famous Blue and White China.

 Angled view of part of a “red hot” bottle kiln. As well as Blue Peter, Doctor Who and Most Haunted, the museum was on C4 TV’s Worst Jobs in History. Arduous packing of the ware, constant stoking of coal fires, entering the kiln before fully cooled plus smoke and fumes were some of the many hazards.

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Hazle Ceramics
The Factory Shop
Limited Painting of 50
on Grantham LE1000

 The Gladstone, Uttoxter Road, Longton is a typical working pottery of N Staffordshire, mid 1700-mid 1900s. It is an Anchor Point of ERIH, European Route of Industrial Heritage.

20th Anniversary 2010
Painted by Hazle & Doreen

Willow Pattern
In China 800AD cobalt blue was the only colour unaffected by the kiln and has remained a popular shade. Willow, imported from China in the late 1700s, tells the story of star-crossed lovers. The Minton plate left dates from 1780. The original Chinese Willow Thomas Minton copied had no apple tree, doves or bridge with people crossing. Much favoured in the 1800s, virtually every British pottery manufacturer has used Willow and it is coming back into vogue.

UK/Europe £89.50
Rest of World £77.83

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 Gladstone, saved from demolition in the 1960s as the best medium size potbank, opened to the public in 1974.