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Wedgewood Museum
The Wedgwood Visitor Centre is a fascinating and revealing
insight into a pottery renowned throughout the world.
Josiah Wedgwood, ‘The Father of English Potters’, was born into a family
already noted in the industry. Any one of his many talents could have brought
him fame – he was an outstanding scientist, artist and engineer. – but his
shrewd commercial instinct led him to found his own pottery company in 1759.
A great social and environmental reformer, he built for his potters a complete
village. Etruria. With good housing and a modern factory. He also actively
supported the building of the Trent and Mersey Canal to transport his fragile
and valuable cargoes faster, more smoothly and at less expense. He created
fresh, original designs, many still produced today, and revolutionised the way
in which they were made.
At The Wedgwood Visitor Centre we have taken much time and great care to make
this tour like no other. The company’s rich heritage is beautifully illustrated
with film, rare exhibits and interactive displays. The tour follows the entire
production process from raw clay to throwing, forming and casting, glazing,
firing and decorating. It reveals a continuing tradition of superb
craftsmanship and shows how the vision and brilliance of one man in the 18th
century lives on, hand in hand with the finest technology of today.
For everyone – from the connoisseur to the casual visitor, for adults and
children – The Wedgwood Visitor Centre is a delightful and worthy celebration
of a great potter and his legacy.
The Centre is sited at the main Wedgwood factory on the outskirts of
Stoke-on-Trent in the English Midlands. The factory in turn is situated in the
midst of 200 acres of glorious Staffordshire countryside, an estate still owned
by the company after its purchase in the late 1930’s when Wedgwood re-located
from the site it occupied in the centre of Stoke since the eighteenth century.
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