Eariler this month myself and WOTS made another trip up to the midlands, Spending time in Stoke, Wolverhampton and Birmingham.
Spode Was one of the earliest names in a long line of ceramic manufactures in the stoke area. Founded in 1767 by Josiah Spode it was responsible for popularising British made porcelain which had recently been developed to compete with imported Chinese chinaware which was very fashionable at the time.
The site on church Street was home to the Spode Factory until 2006 when the company was bought by Royal Worcester who outsourced the majority of production (ironically) to the far east. Using parts of the stoke factory to apply finishing touches and a stamp stating that the ceramics were finished in stoke... As you can imagine this was a miserable failure and Royal Worcester went into administration in November 2008, Finally ending the remaining activity on site.
The future of the works isn't clear at present, The rights to use the spode name were acquired by Portmerion earlier this year but they did not take on the factory site. Though it is thought to be in a key area of interest for regeneration by stoke city council.
Spode Was one of the earliest names in a long line of ceramic manufactures in the stoke area. Founded in 1767 by Josiah Spode it was responsible for popularising British made porcelain which had recently been developed to compete with imported Chinese chinaware which was very fashionable at the time.
The site on church Street was home to the Spode Factory until 2006 when the company was bought by Royal Worcester who outsourced the majority of production (ironically) to the far east. Using parts of the stoke factory to apply finishing touches and a stamp stating that the ceramics were finished in stoke... As you can imagine this was a miserable failure and Royal Worcester went into administration in November 2008, Finally ending the remaining activity on site.
The future of the works isn't clear at present, The rights to use the spode name were acquired by Portmerion earlier this year but they did not take on the factory site. Though it is thought to be in a key area of interest for regeneration by stoke city council.
Spode, Spode, Spode, Spode... Spode!
