I went on a tour today with the Omega Group of Emma Bridgewater’s factory in Hanley.   Bought sixteen years ago at a time when all the traditional potteries were closing (they had wholly failed to adjust to changing tastes, continuing to produce porcelain long after people had stopped buying it), the factory was originally built for the Meakin Brothers (J&G Meakin), which had been established in 1851 to supply the American trade with cheap ironstone ware.   It opened in 1882.   It’s now, once again, a big operation, employing 250 people in all the various stages of production, highly systematised as in the nineteenth century, men doing the mould making and shapes, women the highly skilled transfer and sponge decoration.   The design work is done by Emma herself and Matthew Rice, her husband and managing director, then translated in order to be reproducible.

This is the entrance to the factory:-

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