Bridge 118 to below Plants Lock 41
Well that new detector! It’s position on the ceiling directly over my head whilst in bed was a problem last night. Around the big test button is a ring of green light which flashes every 30 seconds or so. All detectors tend to flash, but this one was SO BRIGHT that it felt like the aliens were invading. Yes I tried turning over and I did have my eyes closed but the light flashed through my eye lids time after time after time! I’m aware that I was awake trying to ignore it for at least two hours, thankfully then I fell asleep.
We couldn’t be tardy this morning, we’d something to tick of the ‘Next Time’ list. A quick chat with Mike on NB Alchemy before we pushed off. It was really good to be able to meet up, until next time, happy cruising for the remainder of the year.
A mile and a half to cruise and we pulled in on the visitor moorings at Middleport Pottery, with a booking for Harecastle Tunnel this afternoon we hoped there’d be enough time for us to enjoy the pottery. You can wonder around the site for free, but if you pay then you get to go inside various rooms and workshops, if you pay more you can get to go round the working Burleigh Pottery Factory. We opted for the Heritage Trail. With green stickers and a key fob we could guide ourselves round the pottery.
Middleport Pottery was the first pottery to be designed by an architect, the whole process of the factory taken into account with the products flowing through from one area to the next. In came the clay by boat, off loaded, it was cleaned, made ready for which ever process it was destined for, slip for casting, put through a pug mill for Jiggering, Jolleying and pressing into various shapes and patterns. Drying. Biscuit firing in bottle kilns, patterns applied, glazes painted or dipped on, dried again, then into the Glosting bottle kilns for their final firing, then packed up and loaded back onto boats to head of to be sold.
Here in Stoke they had both clay and coal, the canal alongside aided the more reliable transportation of the finished goods. Dane normally sits outside the pottery, but today it was on a cruise through Harecastle Tunnel. Those on the trip were on board from 10am, we passed them coming back a little after 2pm.
There’s a wonderful model of the factory how it originally was, made in ceramic (what else!) this shows the seven bottle kilns that used to be in the factory. Three for biscuit firing (the ceramics could be stacked close for firing) then four for glost kilns (the ceramics needed more space once glazed so as not to stick together in the firing). When the clean air act came in in 1956 new methods of firing were found, gas taking over from coal, tunnel kilns were developed to save having to stack everything up around a bottle kiln, blocking the door and then lighting fires to raise the temperature to over 1000 degrees. Six of the original bottle kilns were demolished, the one that remains does so as it was a part of another factory building and not stand alone.
We saw the old offices. Phones rang as you walked past, if answered you’d get the story of an office worker. We watched a film about the factory processes making all the pottery, then looked at examples of Japonica tea sets, Churchill Toby Jugs, other fancy items.
Round past various independent studios we had the opportunity to look round a quarter of the moulds used which had been stored in roof spaces around the factory.
Commemorative plates, Toby Jugs, vases all sorts, an amazing collection of jelly moulds too. A mould could only be used so many times before a new one had to be made from the master.
The Placing House and Bottle Kiln were next. In the placing house Saggers (rough clay containers used to protect the finer pottery whilst in the bottle kiln) were meticulously packed to make the most of the space, then they were carefully positioned in the bottle kiln, piled high one on top of the other right to the top. More delicate items such as plates would be packed nearer the centre of the kiln. Then once full the door would be bricked up and fires lit around the outside of the inner skin of the kiln, ramping up the temperature to a maximum of 1000 to 1250C, this was maintained for two to three hours before the kiln was allowed to cool down. As soon as it was possible to enter the kiln, the men would start to unpack it dressed in many layers to protect them from the heat. Pay was based on the quality of the goods coming out of the kiln, so if a firing went wrong the wages weren’t paid.
The bath house has a wonderful line of sinks, just enough room to stand in front of them, no elbow room. A deep deep bath tub sat in another area. Was there just the one between all the workers, or several? During WW2 the bath house was one of eleven areas earmarked as air raid shelters, it could hold 38 of the 500 employees, thankfully the shelters were never needed.
The Lancashire Boiler produced steam to power the steam engine next door which kept many things moving in the factory.
Time for a break and some lunch. We could have had oatcakes, we could have had some Lobby (a beef stew) but we opted for jacket potatoes and a cuppa each obviously in suitable cups. Very nice and better than the potato wedges we’d had at Shugborough a few weeks ago.
Next we just had time to look round the Lodgekeeper’s House. A two up two down house with projections of people telling stories of their lives in Stoke. Very interesting, but the rooms lacked a little bit in atmosphere.
It was now 2pm time to push off, we’d the tunnel booked for 3pm. We’d enjoyed the pottery, however it still sits on the ‘Next Time’ list as I’d now like to do a factory tour and have a peruse around the independent studio spaces. The seconds factory shop was still WAY too expensive for anything to be purchased. I’m glad that around 30-40 years ago I visited the factory when it was closed and riffled through skips with a friend, we were students at the time. Items that were not too faulty in our eyes were pulled out and later I was allowed to visit my old school and give them all a clear glaze and fire them. Not the most expert job, but it did give me a set of Burleigh ware bowls and various other items which today would have cost me several hundred pounds.
We pushed off. At Westport Lake a hire boat pushed out in front of us. They went slowly, we followed at tick over, would we make it to the tunnel by 3pm? Thankfully yes. They pulled in ahead of us and a Tunnel Keeper came to talk to them. This took quite a long time as their English wasn’t so good, getting them to shine their head light and sound the horn was testing the keepers patience a touch. As soon as he’d decided that they’d understood everything he came to talk to us.
‘Your lucky!’ Why? We’d booked. ‘Your not in the book’. But we booked. I checked the confirmation email. The Tunnel Keeper and Mick were both correct. We had booked and we weren’t in the book for today because Mick had booked our passage for the 11th! We were lucky as someone else had booked and we could tag along behind them, phew!
We whizzed through our safety briefing and were let into the tunnel a few minutes after the hire boat. Our normal speed would be reduced by their normal speed, go too slowly in a tunnel and you loose your steering and end up biffing the walls. Once we’d cleared the portal the doors closed behind us and the loud drone of the big fans kicked in to help ventilate the tunnel. It took a few hundred meters for us to be able to hear each other again.
Around 50 minutes later we emerged at the Kidsgrove portal. The tunnel Keeper here doing his best to keep a group of school kids off the CRT boat. The kids then turned their attention to us, the usual ‘Can I have a ride Mr, I’ve never been on one before’ ‘How much did it cost?’ ‘I could run and jump onto your boat from here’ We talked to them, suggested it would be a bad idea, hoping that we knew they’d not try, but you never know. They soon walked up the steps towards the station and forgot about us as we did about them.
The hire boat had tried turning long before reaching the junction, but managed to get round after a bit of faffing leaving the way ahead clear for us. We dropped down Plant’s Lock 41, the first from the summit pound, and chose where to moor up, easy as we were the only boat in the pound.
A visit to Lidl was required, then Mick headed to Tescos for bits Lidl don’t do and to pick up a prescription whilst I set about preparing cruising sustenance for a busy day tomorrow.
1 lock, 5.5 miles, 1 tunnel, 1 pottery finally visited, 0 shore leave AGAIN! 2 jackets, £15 for a 2nds cup, 11th September, 2 lucky boaters, 1 straight on, 1 batch short crust, 1 tin of oaty apple energy, 1 folded bit of card over the flashing green light!
