Burslem School of Art

Today I explored a bit more of Stoke on Trent in particular the. Burslem area, one of the six towns making up Stoke on Trent. This is the Burslem School of Art building built in 1905, which is now part of a Sixth Form College. Previous students include Clarice Cliffe . The windows on the first floor are huge!

Across the road is the Wedgewood Institute built in memory of Josiah Wedgewood in 1853 to train workers for various skills. See extra, there is a statue of him above the main door. This is now sadly empty as are many lovely old buildings in the area. Very depressing to see fine buildings falling into a state of disrepair and no plans to refurbish them as the council can not afford to and presumably they are too expensive for private developers to take on. Also saw an old theatre, an old indoor market, two banks and several other buildings which are becoming derelict. Very different to the area of South West London where I live.

We also visited the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery which has had a new wing added to house a Spitfire aeroplane which has been reconstructed. The reason it is here is that the main designer of the Spitfire lived in Stoke. See extra 2.

Now on the train journey back to Euston!