Most people know about the pottery heritage of Stoke-on-Trent, and whilst the industry is certainly a shadow of its former self it is still a key player in the city employing several thousand people. There are still a number of very large potteries going strongly, and countless smaller operators. The back stamp and origin remains very important to some people!
A decade ago you couldn't go far in one of the six towns without bumping into a disused pottery factory, nowadays whilst a few of the long term "classics" are still there, new ones are few and far between. Although it wouldn't surprise me if the current energy crisis doesn't force some of those already struggling out of business, running large electric and gas kilns was expensive enough beforehand.
I've managed to convince myself that there are potentially a handful of pottery remnants lurking in the back streets of the city. From scouring the various resources that exist to document the pottery history of Stoke I now have an extremely long list of things to check out, so that will keep me busy for the foreseeable.
Disappointingly there is almost no information available about Norcroft, but it appears to have been registered as a company in the early 1980's. Generally they appear to have made products of the more decorative variety; vases, figurines and the likes - which is clearly a more niche market but offers a much higher profit margin compared to other areas of ceramics. They seem to have been relatively successful, and you can find a lot of their ware for sale on the second hand market. Based upon the paperwork and raw materials left behind, they appear to have gone out of business at some point during the 2010's.
The site of their pottery started off life as an ordinary terraced houses, which at some point became an abattoir with various extensions then being added on to the building over time. Later the abattoir became a part of the FMC (Meat) Ltd conglomerate, whose sign remains to this day on the end of the building. At some unknown point this closed down and eventually the buildings ended up in the hands of Norcroft. A large portion of the building still retains the white glazed brick finish and large door openings that would have once allowed the overhead track system to pass between the various sections of the abattoir. With the demise of Norcroft, the majority was simply abandoned with a smaller portion being converted into industrial units.
Norcroft's works are one of the best representations of a small scale pottery that I've seen, on this level it is relatively easy to follow the production process from start to finish.
Visited several times over 2021/2022 with industrial decline enthusiasts @MotionlessMike / @Humpa / @dweeb - plus a few others.
Mould Making
The most common process for mass producing pottery is slip casting. This is where liquid clay is poured into batches of plaster moulds, allowing for a much faster production rate compared to thrown pottery or hand built items - as well as allowing for more complex products to be made. A good quantity of moulds is required to make the process viable, and most potteries have in house mould making capabilities - although some do outsource this to specialist mould making firms.
The moulds are formed from positive patterns (sometimes referred to as mother-moulds) of the final objects, and can only be used a limited amount of times before they need to be replaced. Usually what you see laying around old potteries are the patterns, normally stored in some archival sequence.
Casting
This production process requires plant to process and distribute slip out to the casting benches, the slip is mixed in a piece of equipment called a blunger and then pumped out via pipework to filling nozzles. The blunger and also a filter press were located within the main kiln area, with overhead pipework running from this out to the casting room. Within the casting room are several casting benches, which have a slatted top over a trough. The moulds are laid on top of the benches and filled with slip - there are generally two types of mould used; solid cast and hollow cast. The solid cast types are fairly self-explanatory and are used for forming things like handles and plates, hollow cast types are for forming vessel shaped items. With hollow cast types, once filled with slip they are left for a pre-determined amount of time which allows a solid layer to form where the slip contacts the plaster of the mould. The remaining slip is then poured out into the trough for recycling back into the system. The moulded items are then left to dry until leather hard before being removed from their moulds and moving on to the next step.
Fettling
The mould making process leaves seams and other deformities on the ware that need to be removed prior to firing.
At ventilated workstations fettlers use knives and sponges amongst other tools to trim these off and smooth out any other marks.
Firing
In the two firings method that seems to have been used here, the fettled pottery is then fired for the first time to take it to what is called biscuit form. This firing results in an irreversible chemical change to the ware making it harder whilst also still being porous, and therefore ready to be decorated.
Within this area of the pottery is one of two similar small shuttle kilns, made by Norcroft's former neighbour Kilns & Furnaces Ltd. The ware is carefully arranged on kiln furniture, this in itself being a skilled job to ensure that enough items can be loaded into the kiln to maximise the economic efficiency of the firing. Also in this area is where the slip plant was located, you can also see the octagonal base where the blunger once sat.
An example of a toby jug at the biscuit stage.
Decorating
Various decorating techniques can be employed, the two main ones being used here were the use of underglaze hand painting and transfers. In the decorating area of the factory is a further kiln which would have been used for the second (glost) firing taking the ware to it's finished state.
There were two decorators workstations still set out, one for transfer application; with a large amount of transfers stacked up around it and another for hand painting with a selection of different underglazes in small repurposed jars.
Glazing
After the decorating process the ware would be ready for dipping in a glaze prior to the glost firing. The decorated wear would be dunked into the large black tub containing the glaze and then carefully placed on the red ended ware boards, as noted on the dipping department notice on the wall. As with almost everything else involved in pottery production, the glaze products were locally produced, a support industry exists locally to supply the pottery manufacturers with the products and equipment they need to make their wares. The key element that was not local was the clay itself, with the native Staffordshire clays not being suited for finer pottery - it is more commonly used for brick and tile making.
An example of the finished product.
The offices were housed in the remnant of the original house. The main room upstairs whilst upside down was quite interesting containing a vast amount of transfers including those from various other local potteries, it's unclear why this was but it's not particularly uncommon for production to sometimes be outsourced to others at times.
All in all, a nice find - and certainly a surprise that things like this can still crop up in Stoke.
A decade ago you couldn't go far in one of the six towns without bumping into a disused pottery factory, nowadays whilst a few of the long term "classics" are still there, new ones are few and far between. Although it wouldn't surprise me if the current energy crisis doesn't force some of those already struggling out of business, running large electric and gas kilns was expensive enough beforehand.
I've managed to convince myself that there are potentially a handful of pottery remnants lurking in the back streets of the city. From scouring the various resources that exist to document the pottery history of Stoke I now have an extremely long list of things to check out, so that will keep me busy for the foreseeable.
Disappointingly there is almost no information available about Norcroft, but it appears to have been registered as a company in the early 1980's. Generally they appear to have made products of the more decorative variety; vases, figurines and the likes - which is clearly a more niche market but offers a much higher profit margin compared to other areas of ceramics. They seem to have been relatively successful, and you can find a lot of their ware for sale on the second hand market. Based upon the paperwork and raw materials left behind, they appear to have gone out of business at some point during the 2010's.
The site of their pottery started off life as an ordinary terraced houses, which at some point became an abattoir with various extensions then being added on to the building over time. Later the abattoir became a part of the FMC (Meat) Ltd conglomerate, whose sign remains to this day on the end of the building. At some unknown point this closed down and eventually the buildings ended up in the hands of Norcroft. A large portion of the building still retains the white glazed brick finish and large door openings that would have once allowed the overhead track system to pass between the various sections of the abattoir. With the demise of Norcroft, the majority was simply abandoned with a smaller portion being converted into industrial units.
Norcroft's works are one of the best representations of a small scale pottery that I've seen, on this level it is relatively easy to follow the production process from start to finish.
Visited several times over 2021/2022 with industrial decline enthusiasts @MotionlessMike / @Humpa / @dweeb - plus a few others.
Mould Making
The most common process for mass producing pottery is slip casting. This is where liquid clay is poured into batches of plaster moulds, allowing for a much faster production rate compared to thrown pottery or hand built items - as well as allowing for more complex products to be made. A good quantity of moulds is required to make the process viable, and most potteries have in house mould making capabilities - although some do outsource this to specialist mould making firms.
The moulds are formed from positive patterns (sometimes referred to as mother-moulds) of the final objects, and can only be used a limited amount of times before they need to be replaced. Usually what you see laying around old potteries are the patterns, normally stored in some archival sequence.
Casting
This production process requires plant to process and distribute slip out to the casting benches, the slip is mixed in a piece of equipment called a blunger and then pumped out via pipework to filling nozzles. The blunger and also a filter press were located within the main kiln area, with overhead pipework running from this out to the casting room. Within the casting room are several casting benches, which have a slatted top over a trough. The moulds are laid on top of the benches and filled with slip - there are generally two types of mould used; solid cast and hollow cast. The solid cast types are fairly self-explanatory and are used for forming things like handles and plates, hollow cast types are for forming vessel shaped items. With hollow cast types, once filled with slip they are left for a pre-determined amount of time which allows a solid layer to form where the slip contacts the plaster of the mould. The remaining slip is then poured out into the trough for recycling back into the system. The moulded items are then left to dry until leather hard before being removed from their moulds and moving on to the next step.
Fettling
The mould making process leaves seams and other deformities on the ware that need to be removed prior to firing.
At ventilated workstations fettlers use knives and sponges amongst other tools to trim these off and smooth out any other marks.
Firing
In the two firings method that seems to have been used here, the fettled pottery is then fired for the first time to take it to what is called biscuit form. This firing results in an irreversible chemical change to the ware making it harder whilst also still being porous, and therefore ready to be decorated.
Within this area of the pottery is one of two similar small shuttle kilns, made by Norcroft's former neighbour Kilns & Furnaces Ltd. The ware is carefully arranged on kiln furniture, this in itself being a skilled job to ensure that enough items can be loaded into the kiln to maximise the economic efficiency of the firing. Also in this area is where the slip plant was located, you can also see the octagonal base where the blunger once sat.
An example of a toby jug at the biscuit stage.
Decorating
Various decorating techniques can be employed, the two main ones being used here were the use of underglaze hand painting and transfers. In the decorating area of the factory is a further kiln which would have been used for the second (glost) firing taking the ware to it's finished state.
There were two decorators workstations still set out, one for transfer application; with a large amount of transfers stacked up around it and another for hand painting with a selection of different underglazes in small repurposed jars.
Glazing
After the decorating process the ware would be ready for dipping in a glaze prior to the glost firing. The decorated wear would be dunked into the large black tub containing the glaze and then carefully placed on the red ended ware boards, as noted on the dipping department notice on the wall. As with almost everything else involved in pottery production, the glaze products were locally produced, a support industry exists locally to supply the pottery manufacturers with the products and equipment they need to make their wares. The key element that was not local was the clay itself, with the native Staffordshire clays not being suited for finer pottery - it is more commonly used for brick and tile making.
An example of the finished product.
The offices were housed in the remnant of the original house. The main room upstairs whilst upside down was quite interesting containing a vast amount of transfers including those from various other local potteries, it's unclear why this was but it's not particularly uncommon for production to sometimes be outsourced to others at times.
All in all, a nice find - and certainly a surprise that things like this can still crop up in Stoke.
