A saggar maker's bottom knocker is not a phrase that trips easily off the tongue and nor does it sound very appealing. Who was the saggar maker and what on earth was his or her bottom knocker?
Well, if you go on a tour of The Burleigh pottery factory in Middleport, near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, then you will find out what a bottom-knocker is. But, I won't leave you hanging or even sagging - let me tell you what it means. The saggar was a clay pot for protecting plates from the heat of the kiln. The Saggar-maker, the man who would make this protective clay case, would hit the rough clay and knock it into shape. He knocked the bottom of the case with an implement called a 'bottom knocker' flattening it. It was tough work and there was always someone waiting in the wings for this gruelling job if you were seen to be slowing up. There was a strict deadline to load up the kiln with saggars to ensure that the kilns were filled up and fired every three days - hard work.
The Burleigh pottery was a big business, employing most of the people in the surrounding areas of Stoke-on-Trent. Dinner services were sent all over the world. Stoke was literally built on layers of clay making it perfect for making pots. Layers of coal beneath the clay were also incredibly beneficial for firing up all the kilns. The choice for your career was either working in the pits or the pots.
The air was filled with smoke as the kilns pummelled fumes into the air until the Clean Air acts came into play. Either working in the pits or the pots meant the average age expectancy of a person's life was the age of 40 because everyone inhaled all these toxic fumes. Most pottery workers contracted a terrible lung condition called silicosis from inhaling the crystalline silica dust.
Our charming tour guide, who showed us around Burleigh factory, was a man in his late 70s. He had worked in the pots as a young boy. He spluttered and coughed as he proudly took us around the factory. He told us that he had silicosis.
With one kiln still in existence today, the Burleigh pottery used to have several kilns. King Charles III saved the derelict factory from demolition, like he did a great many factories to keep our heritage alive. Our guide, wearing a Peaky Blinder's style flat cap, proudly showed us a photograph of the King visiting the factory. The Prince's Regeneration Trust renovated the pottery and in 2014, the then Prince Charles opened the pottery as a visitor centre.
The factory started in 1851 but was renamed in 1862 by Mr William Leigh and Frederick Rathbone Burgess who merged their surnames to become the Burleigh factory.
The Burleigh Pottery is famous for the familiar blue and white glazed floral pattern decorating the china, sold today to homes across the country and usually found on most wedding lists. Another famous pattern from the area is known as The Willow which you will recognise.
The factory stood by the canal, which served the purpose of taking dinner services off to Liverpool to be sent across to America; or off to Hull which served Europe.
Canals and waterways were used so that the pots didn't break. Roads were too cobbled for any dinner services to be transported, so water was used as the best mode of transport.
The phrases 'it's the pits', 'living in a hovel' and 'pot hole' all come from the pottery industry. The streets were made from cobbles and clay. Children would play in the streets and dig holes out of the clay roads to bring a lump of clay back to their families so that they could make a clay cooking pot - hence the term a pot hole.
The kiln workers had the most gruesome job, going into extraordinarily high temperatures wearing clothes made out of tweed and then dosed in water to protect them from the heat. It seems that they had the toughest job of all in the factory. A dank area outside of the kiln was were they watched the kiln heat up, and this area was known as a hovel. The kiln workers literally lived in the hovel.
We then toured the factory seeing the negative and positive clay moulds and jelly moulds made out of clay. We entered a room like an Aladdin's cave full of clay moulds. My friend and I wandered around in awe like kids in a sweet shop.
The Burleigh factory has been restored to perfection. You feel like you are stepping back in time.
It is perfect for taking children around to learn the process of how plates were made. Dinner services were big money items in those days and it is important to learn about our heritage.
The factory is well worth a visit. It has an excellent shop with some bargains, and a cafe by the canal where you can enjoy a cooling drink and watch the world go by. You do feel a bit like you are in an episode of Peaky Blinders or even Coronation Street with the red brick and cobbled streets. It is something out of a film set.
So, it begs the question, pots or pits? Which career path would you have chosen? I would have chosen to work in the pots- I'm not sure I would have been much use in the pits!
https://www.burleigh.co.uk/?ga...
