Burslem

We finished our day in Stoke-on-Trent by going to visit the Wedgwood Memorial Institute, a wonderful, over-decorated, mid-Victorian building with a mass of terracotta decoration, including the months of the year.   It was funded by public subscription and built on the site of Wedgwood’s second factory before he moved out to Etruria:-

Immediately north is the old town hall – a fine piece of flamboyant Victorian baroque, designed in 1854 by G.T. Robinson:-

Opposite was a neoclassical building which I haven’t been able to identify:-

And we went to see the Middleport Pottery, which was closed, but admired the ruined industrial buildings next door:-

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4 thoughts on “Burslem”

  1. Martin Hopkinson's avatar Martin Hopkinson says:

    Kipling’s father was involved with this building . Were the reliefs in a George Tinworth style early works designed by John Lockwood Kiplng?

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  2. I have just checked online who was responsible for the sculpture. Here’s the answer as supplied by the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association website: ‘The Committee decided that the modellers should come from the Potteries Schools of Art and should preferably be from Burslem. Rowland James Morris and William Wright arrived in South Kensington in May 1865, at Morris’ request for help to keep up with the large amount of work, they were joined by J.F. Marsh at the end of 1866. It seems that Morris had much of the control over the design of the ‘month’ panels, he also modelled the statue of Wedgwood, the ‘process’ panels were designed by Matthew Elden, a member of the Department of Science and Art. The ‘month’ panels, statue, and many of the smaller decorative features were fired by Blanchard & Co. of Blackfriars, the ‘process’ panels were fired by Blashfield of Stamford. Signor Salviati executed the zodiac mosaics. The amount of people involved in the work has led to some confusion in sources such as Pevsner and the Victoria County History over who exactly was responsible for the works’. Charles

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