Why is stoke on trent famous

Local artists will go head-to-head in a creative showdown at Stoke-on-Trent's very first 'Art Slam'. It'll feature some of the area's top creative talents creating masterpieces in front of a live audience. Stoke-on-Trent offers plenty of ways to enjoy a calming canal cruise through the heart of the world-famous Potteries. Take a tour around the The Potteries Tile Trail!

The Potteries Tile Trail includes a series of six introductory 'tile trails' - one for each of Stoke- on-Trent's famous six towns. Skip To Main Content. Visit Invest Meet. Other Websites. Other Websites Invest Meet. Sign up to newsletter.

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Things To Do A day isn't enough. Searching for something.. Things To Do. Search Things to Do. Staffordshire Wikipedia. Stoke-on-Trent Wikipedia. By the time Josiah Wedgwood set up business for himself in , the area was supplying a wide variety of earthenware and stoneware produced in and around the villages of the area. Pottery production was also in the process of changing from a cottage-based to a factory-based industry, a transformation that placed the Potteries at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution.

His work, and that of other famous 18th-century Staffordshire potters, such as Joseph Spode I , Thomas Minton , the Wood family , and Thomas Whieldon , helped make the area synonymous with ceramics.

His success ensured the Potteries domination in subsequent porcelain production. Nothing set the Potteries sky-line apart more than the weird bottle shaped brick buildings that looked for all the world like they had been borrowed from a fairytale scene.

Experts calculate that in the heyday there were up to 4, bottle kilns with as many as 2, still standing in the 's. The Clean Air Act sounded the death-knell for the smoky, coal fired oven.

There are 46 still standing today - most are listed buildings. Growth of the city:. By the 19th century the villages of the Potteries had grown into sizeable towns, of which Burslem was the largest. Calls for them to be amalgamated into one administrative unit began as early as The "Six Towns" were not federated until when Fenton was still relatively new; it was also the smallest in terms of population and area. Bennett also changed the name of the local newspaper from The Sentinel to The Signal , an identity that was subsequently adopted by the city's commercial radio station.

Other notable contributors to literature include Elijah Fenton poet , Peter Whelan playwright , John Wain poet, critic and scholar , Pauline Stainer poet and Charles Tomlinson poet, graphic artist, translator, editor and critic.

Yu Tsun goes to a suburb of Fenton to meet Stephen Albert. Since , the council's library service has run a competition to appoint a Young Poet Laureate for the city. This is a competition for local poets aged between 11 and The first winner was Daniel Tatton, and he was succeeded in by Bethanie Hardie.

The city's main daily newspaper is The Sentinel , based in Hanley. Local commercial radio stations include the Signal 1 and Signal 2 along with a Christian community radio station called Cross Rhythms City Radio. Max FM broadcast nationally from Stoke-on-Trent.

Community Radio station 6 Towns Radio is based in Burslem, having been formed in Startup costs will be shared with the BBC but the station is expected to pay its own way with advertising.

The city enjoys a considerable on-line presence. The Pits n Pots website was launched in October as a site to discuss local news. Tunstall and Burslem are served by the MyTunstall website. The wider potteries area is served by The Potteries website, which includes a number of articles and historical materials. These sites are in addition to the council, tourism board, local museum websites and those dedicated to different communities across the city. Hollyoaks actress Rachel Shenton is also from the area.

Paul Bown Comedy actor was born in Fenton. Master illusionist Andrew Van Buren was born in the area and is still based there, although he is more often found performing out of the country. Stoke has a vibrant music scene. The Golden Torch, a local nightclub, became the centre of the Northern soul scene in the early s. Shelley's Laserdome nightclub in Longton played a pivotal role in the house and rave scene of the late s and early s, helping launch the career of Sasha and featuring regular appearances from Carl Cox, until it was eventually shut down by Staffordshire Police.

The Void, a Hanley nightclub, developed a sister relationship with Sankey's Soap in Manchester, helping the latter to revive its fortunes during the late s via the promotion of a club night called Golden. Robbie Williams is the most famous pop star to hail from the city. Many of his songs refer to Stoke-on-Trent, either directly or indirectly. The song "Angels" was partly inspired by the golden angel at Burslem Town Hall. Slash , the lead guitarist for Guns N' Roses and Velvet Revolver was born in Hampstead , but his father was originally from the Potteries, and he spent a few of his early childhood years in Stoke before moving to Los Angeles.

Slash has recalled in interviews and his autobiography that his Stoke relatives drank all of the band's considerable rider: "I witnessed one of my uncles, my cousin, and my grandfather, on his very first trip to London from Stoke, down every drop of liquor in our dressing room.

Consumed in full, our booze rider in those days would have killed anyone but us. Lonnie Cook is a rock 'n' roll guitarist and local celebrity who played with Screaming Lord Sutch in the s. It was described by the council as "part of our drive to help us move the city forward and create a better Stoke-on-Trent for people to live, learn, work and enjoy".

Murdoc Niccals , a fictional member of the group Gorillaz with the role of bass guitarist is in his constructed biography said to have been born in Stoke-on-Trent. Indie rocker Stephen Malkmus mentions Stoke-on-Trent in "Pink India", released on his self-titled solo album, singing that the song's protagonist, Mortimer, is a "rook" in The Great Game , who "came from Stoke-on-Trent. Peter Wyngarde , as the title character of Jason King , makes a quip about a "knicker salesman from Stoke-on-Trent" in the episode "Flamingos only fly on Tuesdays".

Havergal Brian - , the classical composer and music writer, who composed 32 symphonies and five operas, was born in Stoke in Dresden.

The large scale and unfashionable style of his compositions led to them being neglected for most of his lifetime and not a note of his music was commercially issued on record during his lifetime. He died without having heard many of his finest works. Staffordshire oatcakes very different from the Scottish version and traditionally made in corner-shop style oatcake bakeries are a much-loved local culinary speciality.

They remain popular although are no longer the cheap alternative to bread. Oatcakes can be eaten cold or hot with any sweet or savoury fillings. Lobby , a stew not unlike Lancashire hotpot , is still made by local people. Stoke Pride is the city's annual pride march that has been running since , although it was not officially called Stoke Pride until It is a celebration of the city's LGBT community and attracts visitors from many different areas across the country and the globe.

There were talks about such an event in , but the idea was faced by opposition from the local BNP councillors and their supporters. Originally held in Hanley, the event has been held at Northwood Park since The events official website is stokeontrentpride. The Potteries has a distinctive local dialect. Whilst it contains many non-standard words e. Another common variation on the standard English dialect is the use of the word shug for sugar.

This is usually used as a term of endearment when closing a sentence, as in "Ta Shug" thank you, sugar. A local cartoon called May un Mar Lady Me and my Wife , published in the newspaper The Sentinel and written in Potteries dialect, first appeared on 8 July and ran for over 20 years. Since the death of cartoonist Dave Follows in , the full twenty-year run 7, of May un Mar Lady strips are being republished in The Sentinel as May un Mar Lady Revisited , keeping the dialect alive for another twenty years.

Vale Park , home of Port Vale. Completed in , at the time of its construction it was nicknamed 'The Wembley of the North'. Stoke-on-Trent facts for kids Kids Encyclopedia Facts. Mr Irving said he still sometimes got messages from patients wishing to say thank you to his mum. He said he had received messages saying, "if it wasn't for your mum, I'd be dead". It was not until the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended the drug be used in the early stages of treating breast cancer - before that it was reserved for advanced stage treatment.

Born on Seymour Street in Hanley in , he joined the club - nicknamed The Potters - at the age of 15 and returned as "the Wizard of Dribble" on the same pitch at the age of 50, after a year stint with Blackpool. In , he was the inaugural winner of the Ballon d'Or - then known as the European Footballer of the Year award - and the following year was appointed CBE, the first time a professional footballer was recognised by the Queen.

In another first, he was the only professional footballer to be knighted while still playing the game. In , at the age of 50, the son of a barber became Sir Stanley.

He made nearly League appearances for Stoke City and Blackpool as well as 84 England caps and was never booked or sent off. After his death in , his ashes were buried beneath the centre circle at Stoke City's stadium. Every day, Stoke-on-Trent is under the feet of some of the world's most powerful politicians. In , ceramics company Minton - founded in the city in - was commissioned to tile the Houses of Parliament, along with designer Augustus Pugin.

It became one of the most recognisable names in tiling and was in requested to tile the Capitol building in the United States - home to Congress and the Senate. Ceramics and potters have shaped the history of Stoke-on-Trent for centuries, turning out brands which have become household names, such as Wedgwood, Royal Doulton and Emma Bridgewater.

The city is often nicknamed The Potteries and to this day is still famous for its home-grown talent. Maybe Stoke-on-Trent didn't invent the car itself , but if you drove to work this morning you have a Stokie to thank for the fact that your engine started. What's more, you have the same Stokie to thank for the tunes that got you started too. Oliver Lodge, born in , was a celebrated physicist who - among other things - developed radio and also invented the spark plug - the device which starts car engines.