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Report - - Price & Kensington Pottery, National Teapot Works, Stoke-on-Trent - August 2019 | Industrial Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Price & Kensington Pottery, National Teapot Works, Stoke-on-Trent - August 2019

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MotionlessMike

28DL Regular User
Regular User
The History
Price's National Teapots (also known as Top Bridge Works) has been occupied by Price Brothers since the 1890s, becoming Price & Kensington after an amalgamation in 1962. Along with the Spode factory, the Top Bridge Works is the earliest surviving example of a fire proof pottery works. The main warehouse along the roadside and the one remaining bottle kiln are both listed buildings. History is slightly sketchy and I'm unsure when Price and Kensington left the top bridge works, but today a sizeable chunk of the buildings are used by a mix of small businesses such as a gym, carwash and an 'Aladdin's Cave' type shop.

The Explore
Upon entering, my first reaction was 'this is shit' as the first part of the ground floor has been used as a stores by some of the businesses and was full of pigeon poo covered furniture and lawnmowers. However after some extensive monkey-business I made it into the rest of the works and I ended up thoroughly enjoying this one.


The listed warehouse from the roadside

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The first building has obviously suffered a fire at some point and the roof has been partially demolished

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Spain '82 world cup transfers on the ground floor amongst the crap furniture store

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And upwards. Kind of reminded me of Weatherby's from the upper floors (only with more roof tiles)

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Tunnel kiln

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And plenty of teapots!

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A small top floor office with a wall chart displaying 'Gross Clay' and 'Gross Glost'

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Also in here were several boxes of Royal Doulton plates

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Yorkshire Tea

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A little supply cupboard on the wall of a very overgrown room, looked like it hadn't been used since the 70s

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A receipt book from 1973 for the coloured dyes

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And lastly a mould store which involved an incredibly sketchy climb over a collapsed floor using some metal pipes sticking out of the wall :oops:

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Thanks for looking :thumb

 
Last edited:

tigger

mog
Regular User
Excellent stuff yet again!

Interestingly I came across the Price & Kensington brand name recently....I was looking to buy some small 'Kilner' jars (foolishly bought some cheap ones which on arrival were thin glass and generally carp). Interweb search for Kilner brand found Rayware Group who are based near Speke Airport...and amongst the brands they own were Ravenhead, Price & Kensignton, Kilner and I think Viners). No idea if manufacturing is UK based.
Don't just do teapots now though, other afternoon tea related stuff such as cake plates!


*Got some jars direct from Liverfool for the right price and the quality is far better than the 'fake' ones ;)
 

MotionlessMike

28DL Regular User
Regular User
Thanks all. Weird that this one hasn't received more attention on here? And good to hear the name lives on in some form, regardless of ownership!
 

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