wolfism
27-05-2011, 09:28 PM
Cities never sleep so deeply that they fall completely still. Even at the deadest point of night, when good people are dreaming of better times, and bad people have passed out worse for wear - the city shifts, lights trace along the main roads, and buildings shrug off night rain. 5am. As I stood at a window five storeys up in a Travelodge, looking out over a darkened ring road, blue lights flashed in the distance. Take it as read that something is always happening somewhere in the Six Towns and sometimes that means someone is making ready to go somewhere they shouldn't be. Perhaps that's why Arnold Bennett cleared out
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-0003.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-5996.jpg
By the time I reached Longton, driving along a ring road which slices past John Tams Crown Pottery, light was rising in the east. The Strand - the busy street which Tams' pottery sits on - was still quiet, but no doubt bus drivers, milkmen and bakers were already stirring in their scratchers. Crown Works is a deceptive factory, a series of two and three storey buildings which form a wall around a single-storey core. Most are built from an umber-coloured brick which looks dour in bad weather, but lends sobriety to their appearance. Delivery trucks were revving up in far-flung depots and the dawnbirds were clearing their throats when I found myself inside, standing in a darkened delivery bay with a pair of grimy maroon-painted swing doors that opened out into a bright factory floor.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-5998.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-5999.jpg
The pottery is still full of mugs and moulds, dies and patterns, bins full of slip and containers of glaze. The whole is covered in a film of pale clay dust which has settled over the course of five years since Crown Works closed. Arrayed on one side is a series of electric kilns, their refractory-lined doors swung wide, with little kiln cars still intact in front of them on miniature rails. Along another edge is a bigger tunnel kiln: relative to the tunnel kilns you find in brick or tile works, it's small scale, but must have once held tens of thousands of mugs, travelling past gas burners through heating and cooling zones until they were fired. Upstairs are ransacked offices with paper strewn everywhere - but the interesting part of Tams is the production floor, lit by a set of glazed lantern rooflights.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6005.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6009.jpg
The company operated from the Crown Works on The Strand in Longton (this one) and also had the Blythe, Sutherland, and Atlas works in Longton, and a warehouse at the former Monarch flatware site in Fenton. Crown Works lies on an island site at the corner of Commerce St and the Strand it was founded in 1841 by John Goodwin, and he occupied the site until 1851. Meanwhile, John Tams was born in Longton in 1837 and by the time he was 12 years old, was apprenticed to a working potter. Around 1865 he entered into partnership with William Lowe, manufacturing in St. Gregory's Pottery, High Street, Longton as Tams & Lowe. The partnership was dissolved about 1873 and in 1875 John Tams went into business on his own account, and bought the Crown Pottery. At first he specialised in the manufacture of imperial measured ware, such as mugs, jugs and so forth for hotels and public houses. The increasing use of glassware forced him to develop new lines, including ornamental and general earthenware which is why Tams came to specialise in mugs.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6015.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6017.jpg
In 1903 the firm became became John Tams & Son, and in 1912 was incorporated as John Tams Ltd. The Factory originally had 3 bottle kilns, none of which survive today, as it was rebuilt sometime around the 1940s or 50s: the rooflit kiln floor you see in the photos replaced the old kilns. By the end of the 20th century, the Tams group was one of the last great family-run pottery firms in Stoke-on-Trent, continuing to grow through the 1980s from two factories to five. By the time it went into receivership in 2000, Tams employed 730 people but was bought out by the management to create Tams Group Ltd., who purchaced the rights to Tams, Royal Grafton, Grafton Living and Duchess Bone China. In 2002 the newly revivified Tams was valued at £33m: it was growing again, becoming the biggest ceramic employer in Longton, and one of the biggest mugs manufacturer in Europe. However, its success was short-lived and in 2006 the group went into receivership for a second time, and the Crown Works closed, ending over 160 years of ceramic manufacturing on the site.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6018.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6019.jpg
As the morning wore on, the first service buses and bread lorries headed along The Strand - a particularly keen window cleaner was already hard at work by 7am. The volume of traffic on the ring road gradually increased until it impinged constantly on my concentration, signalling that it was time to go. Either that, or be forced to sit quietly all day inside the disused pottery, with parents dragging fractious kids past its windows just a few feet away, and a constant flow of traffic heading past the factory gates.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6022.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6023.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-0003.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-5996.jpg
By the time I reached Longton, driving along a ring road which slices past John Tams Crown Pottery, light was rising in the east. The Strand - the busy street which Tams' pottery sits on - was still quiet, but no doubt bus drivers, milkmen and bakers were already stirring in their scratchers. Crown Works is a deceptive factory, a series of two and three storey buildings which form a wall around a single-storey core. Most are built from an umber-coloured brick which looks dour in bad weather, but lends sobriety to their appearance. Delivery trucks were revving up in far-flung depots and the dawnbirds were clearing their throats when I found myself inside, standing in a darkened delivery bay with a pair of grimy maroon-painted swing doors that opened out into a bright factory floor.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-5998.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-5999.jpg
The pottery is still full of mugs and moulds, dies and patterns, bins full of slip and containers of glaze. The whole is covered in a film of pale clay dust which has settled over the course of five years since Crown Works closed. Arrayed on one side is a series of electric kilns, their refractory-lined doors swung wide, with little kiln cars still intact in front of them on miniature rails. Along another edge is a bigger tunnel kiln: relative to the tunnel kilns you find in brick or tile works, it's small scale, but must have once held tens of thousands of mugs, travelling past gas burners through heating and cooling zones until they were fired. Upstairs are ransacked offices with paper strewn everywhere - but the interesting part of Tams is the production floor, lit by a set of glazed lantern rooflights.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6005.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6009.jpg
The company operated from the Crown Works on The Strand in Longton (this one) and also had the Blythe, Sutherland, and Atlas works in Longton, and a warehouse at the former Monarch flatware site in Fenton. Crown Works lies on an island site at the corner of Commerce St and the Strand it was founded in 1841 by John Goodwin, and he occupied the site until 1851. Meanwhile, John Tams was born in Longton in 1837 and by the time he was 12 years old, was apprenticed to a working potter. Around 1865 he entered into partnership with William Lowe, manufacturing in St. Gregory's Pottery, High Street, Longton as Tams & Lowe. The partnership was dissolved about 1873 and in 1875 John Tams went into business on his own account, and bought the Crown Pottery. At first he specialised in the manufacture of imperial measured ware, such as mugs, jugs and so forth for hotels and public houses. The increasing use of glassware forced him to develop new lines, including ornamental and general earthenware which is why Tams came to specialise in mugs.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6015.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6017.jpg
In 1903 the firm became became John Tams & Son, and in 1912 was incorporated as John Tams Ltd. The Factory originally had 3 bottle kilns, none of which survive today, as it was rebuilt sometime around the 1940s or 50s: the rooflit kiln floor you see in the photos replaced the old kilns. By the end of the 20th century, the Tams group was one of the last great family-run pottery firms in Stoke-on-Trent, continuing to grow through the 1980s from two factories to five. By the time it went into receivership in 2000, Tams employed 730 people but was bought out by the management to create Tams Group Ltd., who purchaced the rights to Tams, Royal Grafton, Grafton Living and Duchess Bone China. In 2002 the newly revivified Tams was valued at £33m: it was growing again, becoming the biggest ceramic employer in Longton, and one of the biggest mugs manufacturer in Europe. However, its success was short-lived and in 2006 the group went into receivership for a second time, and the Crown Works closed, ending over 160 years of ceramic manufacturing on the site.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6018.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6019.jpg
As the morning wore on, the first service buses and bread lorries headed along The Strand - a particularly keen window cleaner was already hard at work by 7am. The volume of traffic on the ring road gradually increased until it impinged constantly on my concentration, signalling that it was time to go. Either that, or be forced to sit quietly all day inside the disused pottery, with parents dragging fractious kids past its windows just a few feet away, and a constant flow of traffic heading past the factory gates.
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6022.jpg
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i53/wolfie723/WDF%202010/tams-6023.jpg