Celebrating the heritage of the Potteries, this photographic exhibition shows the dark beauty of a bygone industry in a modern world and how it once thrived.
FORTYSEVEN: The last bottle ovens and kilns of the Potteries, by photographer Phil Crow and incorporating images from Keele University’s Warrillow Collection, is at Keele University Chancellors Building from 21 April to 21 May
Phil Crow
Main image: Acme Marls ‘The 3 Sisters’, Burslem.
Mon 17 Apr 2023 06.01 EDT Last modified on Mon 17 Apr 2023 07.15 EDT
Cliffe Vale, Twyfords bottle ovens, 1951. At the height of the pottery industry, the skyline of Stoke-on-Trent was dominated by thousands of bottle ovens. Before the outbreak of war in 1939, more than 2,000 had been documented. Over the subsequent years, numbers began to dwindle
Photograph: EJ D Warrillow/The Warrillow Collection, Keele University Library
Tunstall, Pinnox Street, from Loop Line, 1957. The Clean Air Act of 1956 was the beginning of the end for these iconic buildings and by 1964 only 20 were still operable
Photograph: EJ D Warrillow/The Warrillow Collection, Keele University Library
Middleport Pottery, Burslem. Ovens were built specifically for the firing of biscuit (also called bisque) or glost pottery. Usually one specifically for bisque and one specifically for glost. Currently, 30 bottle ovens remain
Acme Marls ‘The 3 Sisters’, Burslem. Kilns can also be split into types. Some were used in the supply industry for the calcining of flint and bone, and others were for firing decoration on to pottery (known as enamel kilns and hardening kilns). Currently, 17 bottle kilns remain
